Kelly Smith Marketing

Fast, Secure Web Hosting is Critical to Online Success

Kelly Smith — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 06:53:17 +0000

Fast and Secure Web Hosting

In a world that measures success in fractions of a percent, 25% would be a huge number. 25% is equivalent to having an Aircraft Carrier going up against a Coast Guard Cutter. Why is that the case?

Simple, because on the Internet, 25% means that you are probably in position 1 on Google versus being on page 6.

The internet is the single most analyzed industry in the world. Every word and hyperlink is counted somewhere. Every backlink is given a value and everything is suspect. If you have a website that is too slow to appear when clicked on, you run the risk of losing customers to a site that is faster. And as much as we would like to optimize our information for faster delivery, nothing can help if your webhost is too slow and the servers aren’t up to speed.

Speed is worth more than 25% on the Internet.

Another thing that is continually hampering peoples attempt to get found online and make any money is hacking. I just had a customer’s site hacked this week and it cost them a few days of work and lost visibility online. If they only made 1 sale a day, that would be 3 lost sales. If they did 3000 sales a day, they would lose a lot to a hacker.

We are all hunting for success online today and I have written about that here, but many of the so-called “Big Boy” hosting companies claim that they are up with the latest security measures-the fact is, they aren’t. And some seem to not really care. They only want one thing: more customers, so they spend all their money on marketing and sales, not security.

Secure Web Hosting for Average People

Listen, I don’t have any inside secrets into the situation and know for an absolute fact that they aren’t keeping to speed, but from experience, that seems to be the case. There are just too many reports of hacking that could be avoided if they would just close the back door to the hackers.

For this reason, I am switching all of my customers to Rocket Press secure web hosting with the affiliate link located below (yes, I will get a commission if you buy from this link-thats what I do as an Internet Marketer is make money online so please don’t have a cow because it doesn’t cost you a thing):

Please understand that everyone I know who wants a presence online needs to do all they can to keep up. Fast and Secure web hosting is like building your house on a ROCK, not the sand. You can make the choice but please understand the results and consequences of that choice.

Secure Web Hosting is The Difference between Life and Death on the Internet!

Many companies have not kept up with the technologies of the day. Remember “One Hour Photo” stores inside grocery stores? They have all disappeared because of changes in technology. The same is true with web hosting-things have changed. Keep up with those changes!

Here are some sobering facts:

not exactly secure web hosting!

Don’t make the mistake of putting any of your mission critical sites on cheap $5 shared hosting accounts! It’s a gigantic risk!

Get secure web hosting here, its far cheaper than being hacked!

Early Social Media-Facebook 1000 B.C.

Kelly Smith — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:19:01 +0000

Social media is all the rage these days. All these reports about Facebook overtaking Google and how big G. is going to overcome it, dominate the tech news pages. Reports constantly flood into our e-mails and homepages about the latest social media website or invention that we simply must be a part of, or we will be nobody.

Social media really isn’t anything new. Here’s a video about my interpretation of Native Americans of thousands of years ago and their version of Facebook and Twitter.

I recently got my Mom onto Facebook so that she could communicate with all of her kids, grandkids and great grandkids. It’s taken her a while but she’s starting to get the hang of it. It’s a big change from the letterwriting and postcards of the past. So far, she’s really enjoying it and seeing a lot more information about her progeny than she ever has in the past. She still hasn’t quite figured out all the intricacies and has a hard time dealing with the changes (don’t we all), but there really is nothing like it in the universe.

I recently had a conversation last night with someone I have not seen in over 31 years. I hadn’t even thought about this person in 31 years, yet we had a wonderful conversation reminiscing our experiences together in the past. Her father was a great man and a great influence on my life and it was sad to learn that he passed away not long after I’d known him. She is currently dealing with a difficult trial in her life because a chiropractor had severed a nerve in her husband’s neck causing a stroke at 39 years old. Now he’s trying to reinvent his life and become a photographer online instead of the rough-and-tumble world of being a general contractor that he knew so well.

Everyone of us have these kind of stories with which to share and read with our friends, families and acquaintances, both current and in the past. All of these social media capabilities allow an interaction never before available. To be able to send movies, photos, quotes, songs and stories to people we care about with such ease and freedom, all while being totally free, is absolutely amazing.

Facebook is now cutting into Google’s advertising revenue which made it such a predominant factor in the Internet world. This is now making Google nervous but let’s step back for a minute and see what happens. Right now, Facebook takes the information that you put in regarding your social profile, your likes and dislikes and in essence, sells it to advertisers offering related products and services. This is the most brilliant form of advertising ever developed because it is highly targeted and highly efficient. The recent shakeup of the head of Google is probably related to the realization that they are losing momentum and need to do something quickly.

Sadly, many advertisers have tried to use this medium to sell their products and many times have done it in an improper fashion. I personally don’t mind advertisements on the right-hand side of the page with an appropriate photo attached that means something to the product or service they’re offering. I do not like someone flaunting a pretty girls figure or face just to get me to look at their latest Real Estate scam, Forex marketing program or MLM. There is a small little “x” in the upper right of every ad with which I will delete and mark as offensive or inappropriate every time I see one of those. I want to punish these people as quickly as possible for misleading me and using base desires to attract me to their products. I would urge you to do the same.

Like I said, I don’t mind the ones as much on the right, but I really don’t like are the ones within the text of the conversation promoted by friends. I must confess that in the early days I did not understand the same medium and was guilty of committing the same crime, so I’m a bit lenient on those who also are learning the ropes regarding ethics, tactics and methods best used on Facebook. Most the time I’ll just delete them but many times I will kindly tell “real friends” that I don’t like these messages.

I also get highly annoyed at the enormous number of game requests that take up my time and space on my front page. When I was getting my Masters Degree in Internet Marketing we had to participate in Farmville on Facebook and I confess, it was kind of fun. The problem was, it took way too much time and every one of my crops died, and so I canceled my account. I don’t like being addicted to anything and I felt myself becoming addicted to that, so I canceled it and I’ve also deleted every single game request that has come across my path since that time.

I’m astounded how much time some people have to spend on Facebook! I’m lucky to spend five minutes a day, but there are people I know that spend 5,6, 8 or even 10 hours per day on this blasted thing. I think there’s far more valuable things we can do with our time than waste it on Facebook. Facebook is a wonderful tool, mind you, but it won’t bring you happiness if that’s all you have to do. Yes, it is fun to reminisce and visit with old friends and acquaintances of the past, but I find far more value in physically serving one another than just having mere conversations.

So, suppose you have a business that you want to market online and have heard of the marvels of social media. You know that marketing is like exercise-if you don’t exercise you get lazy. If you don’t market, you don’t get any business. So, you run out there and try to find someone who knows something about Facebook. They sell you a package whereby they create a product or business page for you. It’s all neatly designed with graphics and personalized information and you are already go with it when all of a sudden you realize, this is going to take a lot of time. Some companies have resorted to hiring out someone to manage and watch over their Facebook account. This is not a wise idea. Remember, this is social media. This is not business broadcasting or advertising. This is people getting to know one another and understanding each other by becoming “friends”.

I’m not saying that Facebook cannot be a wonderful tool for your business, because it can. You just need to go into it with the right understanding that you are building relationships and not selling products. Do I need to repeat that? Relationships are what people are wanting through the social media programs of Facebook, twitter, and the like. They are not signing up for your business page to receive advertisements from you regarding your products. They are looking to develop a relationship with you as a company because of something you have to offer.

I know that everything I’ve just said will be disputed and argued about in numerous fashions, mostly because it will effect someones income. I know that many people are making a fortune selling programs on Facebook and promoting its potential advertising revenue for your business. Please be very careful with this. Facebook is the current hip, new, trendy thing to do, but I already see signs of misuse and abuse and that will affect the future of Facebook and people who use it.

If you want to advertise your business on Facebook, go ahead and create a page for it, go ahead and create coupons and things of interest for those people, but be sure and don’t hire out the social side of things. People recognize when it isn’t the individual behind the company that they thought they were talking to and they don’t like being tricked in a relationship.

In the video above regarding the ancient petroglyphs on the canyon walls, these people were leaving their mark for whatever their original intention was. They may have had rock art critics come by and evaluate their work. There may have been a competition for members of the opposite sex regarding the designs and patterns. They may have been methods of worship or idolatry that they would believe affect the hunt.

They also may have just been plain bored waiting for some herd of deer or antelope to come by so they can eat their dinner tonight.

And that my friends is where I believe the similarities between petroglyphs of the past and the Facebook of today are most similar.

If you would like to have your business run properly on Facebook, please give me a call at (775) 722-4949 and lets set up an appointment to talk.

Internet Marketing Is like Hunting, in Reverse

Kelly Smith — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 00:01:04 +0000

Please let me tell you a story. The other day I was taking a walk in the hills east of my hometown of Sparks, Nevada. I love to search for rocks, ghost towns, and far-off lonely places in the deserts, hills and mountains of my home state. I took my dog on a hike one day searching for some petroglyphs I had seen years ago. When I found them, I looked around and asked myself, “Why would there be petroglyphs here? This is not exactly an ideal location as there are no springs or fields of grass.”

I decided to hike farther up the canyon to a place I’d never been before. There was no trail and it was rather difficult to hike. I came to the base of a cliff of lichen covered rocks and as I glanced farther up the canyon I saw a deer feeding on some grass. I froze in my tracks. Fortunately I was downwind otherwise, I would never have seen them. I then saw another deer, a four-point buck. And then yet another doe feeding nearby. I turned on my camera to take a picture and they twitched at the minor sound it made, but did not run. (The picture below is not one I took-explanation as to why, shortly to come).

Photo of Deer (not my picture though)

I crouched down and crossed the little canyon then climbed the ridge on the other side. I slowly raised my head above the top of the ridge looking down on the deer as I was now above them. I turned on my camera again hoping to get a better shot. I didn’t care this time if I spooked them because it would be fun to get them running on video. As I stepped up over the top of the ridge and kept looking at the deer through my camera, I tripped, dropped the camera, sprained my thumb and spooked the deer!

Seven of them bolted from their feeding area and ran up the hill in the opposite direction of me. I had only seen three, now there were seven! I fumbled around with my camera trying to turn it back on and get a beautiful shot, but only managed to get them when they were quite a distance away.

I had lost a really great opportunity. But if I had been a hunter I would’ve come home with a dandy four-point buck to mount on my wall. (Don’t worry, I have not even tried to hunt a deer in more than 30 years).

Apparently these deer (and their ancestors) had come down this canyon for hundreds of years to reach the year-round natural springs in the valley below for water and food. Native Americans had created places to hunt them and the petroglyphs were created during the long waiting periods of boredom waiting for their kill. If they didn’t hunt, they didn’t eat. All sorts of animals used the springs as a food source and it became a natural hunting ground. Antelope, deer, rabbits, coyote, chukar, quail, etc. were all hunted here and that’s the reason for the petroglyphs.

When I came home I uploaded all the video files and camera shots to my computer and deleted them off the SD cards. A few hours later I returned to my computer expecting to edit and upload the videos but my computer died. This was the third time in seven months that I’ve had a hard drive failure on this computer and am now requesting a replacement from Apple.

I have an automatic backup system but it was not connected that day so all I have to show for this experience is a swollen, sprained thumb!

Internet marketing is very similar to this experience, except with one very major difference. Most of us don’t have to hunt today to provide food for families or pay the bills. We either own and operate a business that produces a product or service, or work for someone that does. The labor that we have to do is to create a product and service to solve another persons problem. Marketing is the means by which other people find out about who you are and what you do and how you can help them.

Traditional forms of advertising have utilized a “broadcast” mentality that throws up messages everywhere we go to entice us to call them or visit their store to make a purchase. While some demographics have been utilized to make proper decisions regarding which television show to advertise on (for example) the results have still somewhat been crude and unrefined. For the most part, all traditional forms of advertising use some method to jolt you out of your trance and make you think about them for a moment.

Internet marketing is completely different. So is Social Media marketing. For the first time in all of history we have a medium where people go to search for a solution to their problems and we can track their results. They type in all kinds of things to help them feel better, look better, get rid of aphids on their roses, choosing the best paint, do research on which car to lease, try to decide on the best new camera to buy…the list is endless. They actually go online and type in keywords and phrases that they understand and the results that pop up are what the search engines have decided are the closest resembling answers for their search query.

In other words, they are hunting for an answer. It’s like hunting in reverse. Instead of a business going out and trying to target specific individuals, Internet marketing allows individuals to hunt for specific solutions provided by businesses. I don’t think anyone in our day would like to be called or referred to as “the hunted,” but that is in essence what’s going on. And I doubt the ones being found are objecting.

Your business, product and service are being hunted and searched for every single day by someone, somewhere on the Internet.

And that trend is continuing to grow in dramatic fashion. It is safe to say that the majority of people finding and choosing a business have gone through some sort of search engine to find them. The next big wave of search traffic will come from the mobile marketing platform and it promises to be the most dramatic shift in advertising to date.

But let’s focus on helping your business to be found on the Internet. Findability, is the most important aspect of any Internet marketing campaign. If they type in a search phrase, and your business does not show up, they will go to the person or business that does. You have to be “findable.”

Sadly, most businesses of today still do not understand this dramatic difference between Internet marketing and traditional forms of advertising. It is still so new to so many people. And one of the biggest reasons for that is that there just too many options available for business today. Internet marketing all by itself, is an enormous subject. It is far more than PPC were SEO (if you know what those terms mean). Which one should they do and how do they start?

Another problem I see is that many people try to use traditional forms of advertising (i.e: broadcasting to the world) on the Internet, and while it works to a degree its usually very expensive and only reserved for the largest of companies to obtain success in this manner (although this is not entirely true). And just as I tripped and fell and lost a good photo-op, every business I know is also missing out on successful sales because they aren’t using the Internet correctly (or at all) and customers are going to those who do.

If you’re having a hard time getting your business found on the Internet, please call me today at 775-722-4949 to schedule a time to analyze your online status and offer you a proposal about how to fix it. I have a Masters Degree in Internet Marketing and I know how to help you. But my company only has the ability to service so many customers, so it’s important that you act quickly because once we’ve reached the limit, we will have to send you somewhere else. I don’t want to do that, but there’s only so much any business can do. So call me today or fill out the form to the right and I will get back with you as soon as I can.

We can make it possible for your business to be found online by those who are hunting for your products and services to solve their problem. Call today at 775-722-4949!

Marketing Is like Exercising

Kelly Smith — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 01:35:56 +0000

Marketing Is like Exercising

Almost every day week I go to the gym to get some exercise. Since I sit at a computer all day, it’s very important for me to get exercise for my mind, my circulation and back. It hurts like crazy if I don’t exercise very regularly. I can go 3 days without exercise and I am on a stretcher! There are lots of other reasons for me to exercise too.

Everyone knows the value of getting exercise: it’s good for your heart, your brain, your lungs, your circulation, digestion, flexibility, depression, clear thinking, keeping up strength, reduction of disease, better immunity to flus and viruses, etc. etc. The list is almost endless of the benefits of daily exercise. I cannot function well if I don’t get that exercise.

What happens when people don’t get proper exercise? They get fat, lazy, they lose energy, they get sick, they get depressed, and eventually it takes an entire battalion from a fire truck to get them off the couch. It’s not a pretty picture.

But the same is true with marketing, no business survives without some form of marketing and advertising. And marketing done right can reap financial windfalls. We’re talking the Mr. Olympics of marketing when executed correctly.

What always fascinates me though, and has for over 30 years, is that marketing budgets always seem to be the first ones axed when businesses face difficulties. This has never ceased to amaze me because marketing is what brings in new jobs, customers, projects and profits but it’s the first one cut. It’s like they decided to stop exercising and expect everything to stay the same. It doesn’t work.

In the video above I mentioned that one of the things I do every day when I exercise, is to read materials or watch training videos about marketing. It’s very important to keep up with my industry because no industry in the world is changing as fast as Internet marketing. I mentioned elsewhere that I got a Masters degree in Internet marketing yet I’m auditing the same course again to keep up with new things and to re-digest the mountainous amount of information that was heaped upon me during that crazy year.

And what I am finding is more and more exciting every single day. There is just no reason for any company to not find the people who are looking for their products or services. Maybe I should reverse that statement: there’s just no reason for any person looking for particular product or service that cannot find what they’re looking for. The trick is for business to be chosen by those seeking for those products or services.

Internet marketing is like no other marketing medium in the world. I just can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this discussion with people from traditional forms of advertising, they just don’t get it. All sorts of display advertising are being bandied about everywhere you go: you hear radio ads in your car, you see ads in the newspaper in the morning, you see ads on the television during your favorite shows, you see billboards splashed all over town, posters in buildings and bus shelters, you read postcards in the mail, even ads on your grocery receipt and shopping cart all trying to get you to buy their product!

The list is almost endless in the number of ways we are attacked every single day by traditional forms of advertising. But the Internet doesn’t work that way even though everybody’s trying their best to make it work that way.

When someone goes on the Internet and has a particular problem, say, they’re trying to find a relief for gout in their feet. It’s a very painful condition (that fortunately I don’t have), but they are looking for a solution. They will type in a specific word or phrase related to this condition such as this affiliate link of mine: “gout foot pain relief“.

Now mind you, they are searching for an answer. They have come to a place that they hope to find a solution. They are targeted in their mission and they know what they want. They aren’t driving down the street, they aren’t watching TV, they are focused in their desire and want to find an answer.

The websites that show up for the search term “gout foot pain relief” are ones that they click on hoping that they have the answer they are searching for. If a business wants to be the one chosen by this customer, they need to be able to answer that request in the form that it was asked. This is a very powerful secret that for some reason, people still don’t get. That phrase “gout foot pain relief” had better be written in this exact same order somewhere on their website in order for it to be clicked on, otherwise they will go to a site that does have it in that order.

This presents a very interesting problem for the average marketer. There are lots of different search phrases that people use and finding the search phrase that will result in a sale is a talent and art that needs to be cultivated. All kinds of software programs are used and created a daily basis to provide this service.

I just gave you a dramatic secret that most people don’t realize and can save you a lot of money in your marketing and advertising efforts. There are a lot more that I can help you with to help you reach more customers, make more sales, generate more leads and increase your profits. Just give me a call at 775-722-4949. Also feel free to fill out the form to the right and I will send you a free e-book on one of the methods you can use to build your online marketing empire today.

And it doesn’t take much exercise for your fingers to do it either.

A Masters Degree in Internet Marketing

Kelly Smith — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 02:27:06 +0000

Although I have always been interested in the Internet since its inception, it wasn’t until about six years ago that I started heavily studying it and trying to make a living by marketing online. What a wild ride that has been! I think one specific story will give you an example to understand where I’ve been.

Several years ago I was marketing an online business that seemed to be fairly legitimate. I won’t give the name here because it has since been completely dissolved. Although search engine optimization (SEO) is something that people hear now on a regular basis, at the time it was an intriguing novelty. A company called me up and said that they would guarantee me first page listings for several search terms for only $3200 through SEO.

If I would’ve taken that $3200 and thrown it in the trash, at least I would’ve known where it went!

But I knew that the Internet was the future and although it really upset me, it did not deter me. In fact the more I learned about the Internet, the more I became infatuated with it. I bought almost everything I could find and spent my life (and my life savings) on learning what this all meant. There was something so intriguing and interesting about this new medium. I had been involved in digital printing and was a pioneer in the industry since 1992, but was too involved in that at the time to take advantage of the new things on the Internet happening in the late 90s. I wasn’t a pioneer this time.

But this was something different. All the traditional mediums of newspaper, television, radio, billboards, posters, bus wraps, banners, postcards, etc. were means of advertising that were “in your face”. Every one of them tried to jolt you out of your trance to get you to buy their product or see their show. I know, because I printed thousands of them for hundreds of customers.

The Internet is a place for people to go to find things you sell to solve their problem. And, as I soon found out, it had the ability to track just about every single aspect of an online consumers experience. It could track where they came from, what webpage they were on before they visited this one, which search engine they used, what search terms they used, and even the resolution of their monitor (if you wanted to know that).

This ability to track consumer behavior was absolutely fascinating to me because you could find out in an instant what was going on: if a certain search word work better than another; if one color work better than another; if one video worked better than another; if one banner ad pulled in more customers; if one browser worked better than another, etc.

No other medium had this power!

All of them had some “human” way to track what was going on, mostly just by measuring the number of sales created. Television and Radio had its Nielsen ratings and newspapers promised to broadcast your ad to everyone in the Valley if you will just put it in there long enough to get the results you’re looking for. But the Internet had instant feedback like nothing else and accuracy that defied the best traditional prognosticators of marketing available.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I decided that if I was going to spend all this money on all kinds of programs, coaching, seminars, webinars, telephone calls, books, CDs, DVDs, and the like related to this industry, then why not do it the right way, in an organized fashion from experts in the field who could be verified as legitimate in their knowledge? Why not do it in such a way that would make sense? Why not follow a specific and organized plan that could bring about the results I was looking for?

I decided to go get a Masters Degree in Internet marketing and I achieved my goal as of October 1, 2010. Even though it was an extremely difficult 13 month program that required between 20 and 35 hours per week (rarely seeing my family and never having a free Saturday!), it was worth it. I also am proud to announce that I won “Best In Class” from a vote of my peers and the professors. I didn’t even know that was an option until 3 weeks before we graduated!

So what does all this mean to you? It means that you can know that I’m not a fly by night organization or company. You can know that I put forth the time and effort to become an expert in the field. You can know that I’m here for the long haul and want to make things right to produce the results you’re looking for.

What I didn’t really know, was that I was jumping into an industry that is becoming laden with shysters and profiteers alike. I have been talking to a woman who owned a hairdressing salon about doing some marketing with her. She wanted me to come back in a month when he thought she would have some more money. Two weeks later an individual came along promising her all kinds of results if she would just pay $100 per month. Apparently he was quite persuasive because after he got his $10 haircut, she paid him $100 and was looking for some results.

He never called back. She paid him $90 for the privilege of cutting his hair!

I wish this was a singular story but apparently it is happening over and over again. There is great mystery surrounding the Internet and people are being taken advantage of because they don’t really have time to understand all of the details and ins and outs of such a complicated medium. To say that the Internet has changed over the last 10 years would be the understatement of the decade. To try to keep up with that change is about as difficult as building any business could be.

My goal is to do everything I can to get your business found online. Most people know that the yellow pages don’t work anymore (except for just a few industries). Most people have seen diminished results from traditional advertising mediums and they know they need to market online, but they just don’t know where to start or know what to do. They get phone calls every single day from Internet marketing call centers all over the country promising them great results for only a few hundred dollars per month, but the results never seemed to materialize.

I’m here to change that, but I need you to know that there are some ground rules that we have to follow. Here are just a few of them:

Marketing on the Internet is a “learn as you go” program. We need to find what works best for you. No two businesses or markets react the same way online.
While every business needs a website (contrary to what some people will tell you) a website is never enough. Without marketing that website, your results will be nowhere near your desired goals.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Never buy a packaged program that “works for everyone.” They never last.
The advertising battleground has now been reduced to the size of your monitor for the attention of customers and prospects.
The competition is going to get worse and worse down the road. Be prepared to keep up with those changes.
There are more and more laws relating to the Internet that are being written on a daily basis. It is important to keep up to date with what is considered legal online.
Blackhat techniques (methods that are unethical) are never a viable option for your marketing efforts. They will always produce a negative result over time.
Your website needs to be a living and breathing thing that requires daily (or at a minimum weekly) attention. Long gone are the days when you could hang out a “shingle” called a website and leave it there for people to find you. They will not.
We have only seen the teeniest, tiniest tip of the iceberg regarding this industry! I’m here to tell you that you have no idea how much the Internet will affect your business in the coming decade! If you are aware of its potential, invest in its future and keep up with the changes, you will reap rich rewards.
If you are not online now, that teeny little iceberg will sink your business unless you make drastic changes.
Internet marketing is more than just a SEO or PPC! It’s far bigger than most people realize and encompasses things such as: video marketing, article marketing, PPC, RSS, game based marketing, branding, social media (Facebook, twitter, etc.), banner advertising, e-mail marketing, mobile marketing, etc.

If you’re ready to get more customers for your business through all the methods under the umbrella of “Internet Marketing” please call me at 775-722-4949 or e-mail me at KellySmithMarketing@Gmail.com. I promise you that I will do my best to help you reach your marketing goals. And you will get a weekly report showing exactly what is happening with your website.

Call me today and you can get a free video analysis of your site to show how well its doing and some things to change to make it rank better. Call me at 775-722-4949 but you must hurry because I can’t do everyone. There is a limit on this offer and first come, first served.

My Radio Interview with Jeffery Benjamin

Kelly Smith — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:07:22 +0000

Jeffrey Benjamin of Breakthrough Training

One of the local people I admire in my Reno Sparks area is Jeffrey Benjamin. His company is called “Breakthrough Training” and is committed to helping people become their best by finding out a little better about who they are and by giving them a great training program that challenges long-held personal beliefs. I’ve met several of the alumni of his training and they all have great things to say about it. It is definitely on my short list of things to do this next year.

I was recently interviewed by Jeffrey to be on his weekly radio show and below is a link to that broadcast. This was an interesting experience for me. In his office where he works he has a very nice radio and television studio with all necessary equipment that he needs. He’s truly focused about helping people become successful and he has quite a following. At every meeting that I have seen him attend there are always 30 or 40 people near him wanting to shake his hand. He has a very commanding presence but very personable the same time. He’s a take charge kind of individual who doesn’t stomp on the little people in the process.

Be sure and go to his website at http://www.BreakthroughTraining.com or visit him on Twitter at @JeffreyBenjamin or his Facebook page http://www.Facebook.com/JeffreyBenjamin. This guy is a true gem.

I hope you enjoy this short interview:
Jeffrey Benjamin Kelly Smith PODCAST

Related Websites

Apple’s iPad Changes The World

Kelly Smith — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:32:31 +0000

Throughout the years there have been several dramatic changes or shifts, even called revolutions when it comes to business and technology. One of the biggest of all times is the Gutenberg printing press which made the printed word available to everyone in a cost-effective manner. Originally the state run church sought to prevent the printing and distribution of the Lord’s word. Great men like William Tyndale were even martyred for trying to produce the Bible for all to read. Before Gutenberg’s day someone had to hire a person, a scribe to copy it word for word and it was very expensive because it took years.

Modern Printing Press far different than ones 500 years ago!

Original Gutenberg Bibles are some of the most valuable artifacts of the kind. But it was only the first of several revolutions over the next 550 years. The telescope by Galileo altered our view of the universe. The cotton gin made it possible for clothing to become less expensive. The lightbulb has had so many positive effects on our lives that it’s impossible to calculate. The railroad, telegraph, radio, motion pictures, air travel, automobiles, submarines and other naval vessels, television, space ships, satellites, computers, the Internet, cell phones, iPods and Rogaine are just a few of the major events of the last few hundred years. (Ok, I slipped that last one just to see if you were paying attention!)

But we have just witnessed another earth shattering life-changing event that, although it has received much attention, I believe most people do not realize how powerful this event really was. What I’m talking about is the new product from Apple computer called the iPad. Why do I make such a dramatic statement and rank it among those lists of life altering inventions?

Because this will have a dramatic impact on your life. Just like Gutenberg’s printing press that began to bring us out of the dark ages the iPad literally brings the world to your fingertips like nothing else. If you own a magazine or newspaper you had better wake up. If you work for a printing company that prints magazines I hope your eyes are open. If you are involved in distributing or shipping such printed products this will really change your life.

Apple's iPad Alters the Universe

In the not-too-distant future just about everything that we normally receive through the mail or delivered on our doorstep in the morning will be delivered through your iPad. People Magazine, Golf Digest, your local newspaper, etc. will all be viewed and watched on this little device that fits in your purse or briefcase.

Instead of static photos, video will now be the norm. The days of a few hundred cable channels being available on your television just got replaced by millions of options on your iPad. The days of direct mail postcards are probably now numbered because direct iPad postcards are just around the corner.

I know I’m barely scratching the surface here because it’s hard to see just how far-reaching effects of this product really are going to be. But just like with what the iPod did to the music industry and the iPhone has done to the telephone or cell phone industry, the iPad will now do the same to the print, television, radio, and shipping industries. When I say shipping at really mean the Post Office. Companies like UPS or FedEx will become even more important than they already are with a product like the iPad.

So if you’re involved in any kind of advertising or marketing you need be prepared for a product like the iPad. (I personally will be really happy to not have to watch those stupid Super PoliGrip commercials during evening news!”Bye Bye Paste, No More Ooziness!”) In the last few years the Yellow Pages have taken a dramatic hit as more people have moved away from their once-useful-but-now-antiquated medium to searching online for what they need. The same will be true for the iPad. The ability to track people that are near you or your business will become paramount to your success. But you’re only going to be able to track them if they give you permission.

Your personal identity and security will be even more important than ever and I guarantee you that your freedoms will be impinged. But I’ll stop right here because it would be very easy to go down a negative path here of conspiracies and biblical prophecy. We’ll keep things on the up and up.

It is my hope that for your financial future you will recognize the impact this product is going to have on your business, work, products, life and future. If you thought you were drowning in information before, we just had the effect of a flood similar to Noah’s ark poured out upon us by one small announcement. The only ones who were saved were the ones who listened to Noah.

Better start iPad-dling!

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More Sales with Social Media?

Kelly Smith — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:33:08 +0000

People always ask me how to generate more leads, make more sales and increase their business with the Internet. They want to know how to use Social Media to accomplish this. Its free and they have the ability to broadcast to the whole world and they ask, “How can I reel them in using Twitter or Facebook?”

What do you think about that question? Is there anything wrong with it? Does it feel right or accurate or desirable?

We are Social People on the Web

I say that something is definitely wrong with that question. Here’s the deal. For years and years, since the beginning of advertising, it has always been a one-to-many method of accomplishing that desire. Some marketing firm or department comes up with a message; it goes through design and testing and finally gets approved by management. It gets printed, filmed, broadcast, labeled and mailed. The message is then accepted or rejected by the potential consumer who got blasted with the message that interrupted their favorite TV show or while they wait to hear their favorite song on the radio. The open the mail near the trash can to zap anything of little interest. They spend 10-30 minutes a day deleting junk email.

Its called interruption marketing. We are so used to it we hardly notice it anymore and we just live with it. We change the channel, turn the dial, throw it in the trash or make some decision that we are going to do something about what we just heard, saw or read.

But Social Media is different.
Its Social. . .
Its Friendly. . .
Its Relationship driven. . .

If we have a relationship with someone and they turn and try to sell us something , it can ruin that relationship in an instant. Someone wanting us to join his or her favorite Miracle Juice Company has accosted us all and something happened to that relationship in the process. It dropped a notch. It may even ruin the relationship and removed the trust you once had.

Social media should be an investment in building relationships. Just as it takes time to build a friendship, it takes time online too. Dr. Bret L. Simmons is great at pointing out this principle and trying to get people to make this shift in the advertising world.

Twitter is great for sharing your message amongst friends who share your same ideas and passions. But you have to build those relationships and find those who feel the same way you do. That doesn’t happen overnight.

I recently attended a panel on Social Media at the University of Nevada Reno with 4 great guys who are leaders in this industry. Each one came from various backgrounds and experiences and approached things in a different way but the consensus was the same. The panelists were Bret L. Simmons of the College of Business (UNR), Mike Henderson of One to One Interactive, Professor Todd Felt of the School of Journalism (UNR), and Flip Wright from the Glenn Group. About 65 people attended the event and although it started out slowly, it really took off and all were well fed with new information and a new perspective about Social Media.

Here is the message of the evening: if you try to use interruption-marketing techniques in a Social Media setting, you will fail. If you are a jerk in person, you are a jerk online and Social Media will bring that out in a short time.

There is such potential on the Internet for something good to happen. The opposite also exists and unless we follow the rules of Social Media, we will go the way of the online dodo bird and become extinct.

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Personal Branding in a Crowded Society

Kelly Smith — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:28:18 +0000

One of the most powerful aspects of marketing is the concept of Personal Branding. Before I explain more of this let me back up a little bit and give you some history.

Branding actually goes back thousands of years but we associate the word “branding” with stamping a hot iron logo on the rear end of a cow. This would brand the cow and claim it as a property of a certain rancher. In the old West, before there were fences that kept them in a certain area, cattle would wander all over the place in search of food. This became the only real way to designate whose cow was whose.

Branding Cattle was the only way to claim them as property

In our modern era we are very familiar with brand names such as McDonald’s, Nokia, Samsung, Coca-Cola, and thousands of others that occupy a specific little niche in our brain. Each one of these brands represent a specific product or service that we think about. There’s even a website that shows the top 100 brands of any given year and it’s a fascinating study.

Companies large and small all have a brand related to them. But a brand is not a logo or a corporate trademark, it’s “a gut feeling in the mind of the consumer*”. It’s what a person perceives the company to be which may be far different than what the company wants them to think they are.

If you want someone to do work on your furnace or air conditioner, you already have someone in mind. If you want to go to a bakery and get a delicious treat, you almost certainly have a place in mind. The same is true with just about anything else in our society.

It’s also true with individuals. You yourself have an aura or brand associated with you and what people think of you, or have a gut feeling about you. Every person that knows you has already categorized you as to who you are, your personality, your likes and dislikes, the things they don’t like about you, the reasons they would call you an invite you to a movie or call someone else, the type of car you drive, etc. etc. etc.

If you can narrow down the essence of who you are to one word, what would that be? Think about this for a moment. It’s very important. It may not be exactly who you are at the moment because you may be a lot of things to a lot of different people but when it comes to personal Branding, you need to think about occupying a single word in a person’s mind.

If I tell you to think of your favorite car-what is it? If I tell you to think about your favorite color, what is that? The same is true with your favorite movie, your favorite song, your favorite software program, your favorite tires, favorite Chinese food place, favorite vacation spot, etc.

If you can work and spend your entire marketing efforts on trying to occupy a single word in people’s minds, you will become very successful. The key is though you cannot occupy more than one word. Someone will always dominate a single word and it isn’t you, if someone else.

Many of these principles were taught to me by Diane Diaz and Bret L. Simmons and I have to give them credit for how they have affected my life with this. It was kind of an epiphany to wake up one morning and realize I was on the wrong track. I was not focused on what was most important to me and what was the one word that I wanted to occupy people’s minds.

Bret said that his single word is “leadership”. For me the word is “inspiration“. My goal now is:

To inspire People, Leaders and Companies to be the Best that they can be and to have a Positive Influence in the World.

I really can’t think of a better thing that I could be doing something that fits in with my personality and personal desires.

This epiphany is so revealing and freeing to me. I don’t have to be anything more than inspirational. I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t have to know everything about everything, I just need to work on being the most inspirational person that I can be.

You have got to look inside yourself to see what single word you would like to build your life around. Maybe its decisiveness, management, loving, support, fun, humor, pioneering, strength, or a million other terms. It really doesn’t matter as long as it’s important to you. No matter what principle you want to base your life around, the vast majority of the world can use you.

They don’t know where they’re going and if you do, you’re way ahead of the rest of them.

Start right now and decide what word describes you and what your personal brand should be. The go out and be it!

(*The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier)

Initiated from a discussion at FullSail.edu

Most Famous Song in History?

Kelly Smith — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:42:09 +0000

Here’s an interesting question: What song or part of a song has been played more on the radio than any other in all of history? Would that be equivalent to making it the most famous song in history or should we look for some other criteria?

My first reaction to this would be the song “My City Was Gone” by the pretenders because it’s played on every Rush Limbaugh show several times a day and has been around since at least 1984. But I’m just not sure of this answer. Some of the old DJ’s that were on the radio for years, say 50 years or more, do any of them have their own theme song that they kept playing through those years?

Some brands of companies have songs associated with them like “Rhapsody in Blue” for United Airlines, but that may have been played mostly on the television and not on the radio so I guess we don’t really care exactly what medium its played on, just how many times it’s been played.

There are also a lot of commercial products that have songs associated with them, would they win this contest?

Some groups like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir have been playing for over 80 years, so do they, or other groups like them, have a theme song that could win this contest? Are their singers in other countries like Julio Iglesias, who is far more popular in the rest of the world than the United States, does one of his songs top this chart?

How about something from Michael Jackson, the Beetles, Elvis or the Rolling Stones?

How about the Theme song for Sesame Street? All the song lists that I found for “Top 100 of All Time” are too limiting to answer this question.

Are there theme songs of ancient countries, like China, Israel or Japan, that have songs played more than any other? Many of them didn’t have radio for most of their existence so maybe this isn’t a fair question but I would still like to come to some sort of consensus.

I look forward to hearing your answer below and if you have any statistics to back it up, that would even be better. I tried to search this answer on the Internet but didn’t get very satisfactory results, in fact I really couldn’t find any.

Let me know what you think.