Lies Lies Lies!!

I’m in the mood for a good rant today…

Tell Me Lies, tell me sweet little lies
~Tell Me Lies, Tell me tell me lies~
Oh no no, you can’t disguise
~You can’t disguise, no you can’t disguise~
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

It’s a song by Fleetwood Mac called “Tell Me Lies”. Maybe you’ve heard it? Catchy tune. (if you know it, bet you’re singing it in your head!)

So what does it have to do with anything?

I’m fed up with the lies, the pure garbage that is being fed to people and unscrupulous marketing.

… let me tell you a story…

I stepped into the world of touch screen phones. Yep, I got tired of waiting for Blackberry to come out with a new phone for T-Mobile and upgraded into the new HTC Sensation. It’s a touch screen, big display, 4G, has all the bells and whistles, android, easy to use – I love it and so does my wife. My kids love “Angry Birds” – wow what an addictive waste of time that game is eh?!!

I get my first bill and trying to be a good steward I review it to make sure there are no surprises.

Wrong.

2 bogus charges. Ugh. That means I’ve gotta call customer service. Fortunately T-Mobile has great customer service. I usually get a cheery, delightful person who is happy to help. Today was no exception. I got Jessica, a pure delight. She reviewed the charges in question with me.

The first was for insurance. When I got the phone, the sales guy pushed this hard on me. I declined several times and he persisted like a battering ram taking out a castle door. He said “it’s free for 30 days” so I relented and said ok.

Guess what? … it wasn’t free. Not only that, the T-Mobile rep said they have no authority to do that.

My Blood Starts To Boil

The second bogus charge: there’s a monthly charge of $9.99 to allow us to download ringtones from a 3rd party. Neither me or my wife signed up for it. Some cheesy 3rd party company bogussly (is that a word?!!) spammed us some cryptic texts. Irritated, we replied for them to stop.

Well, I guess they didn’t and instead they signed us up for their service and we got dinged for it. Purely unethical in my books. I’m sure they make a tidy profit, afterall how many people have cell phones and how many times do people check their phone bills? The T-Mobile rep said that this kind of stuff unfortunately happens a lot. And to cancel this bogus service, we have to contact the 3rd party and have them remove it. You can be sure I’ll check my bill next month!!

Happy Ending to This Story

Jessica “Your Friendly Neighborhood T-Mobile Rep” to the rescue!! – she reversed both charges and got us all squared away. She made it such a pleasant experience. And I’m grateful for her.

Thank you Jessica.

What Does This Have To Do With Marketing?

I have clients come to me time and time again looking for advice. I get contacted out of the blue by clients, some have gone months without reaching out to me and suddenly they want advice on a variety of topics – internet marketing, SEO, Social Media, Facebook, website design, landing pages, USP’s, the list goes on.

Why do they contact me?

Just like the garbage I had to deal with on my phone bill, there’s so much crap being thrown around out there about marketing. There are a lot of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

YOU MUST KNOW THIS AND BEWARE

I’ve had clients Adwords accounts turned off because they were seduced, I’ve had clients waste THOUSANDS of dollars changing their site to appease someone jibber-jabbing about SEO (I’ve got a great story about a test we did where we got multiple listings on the first page of Google for a term that has over 4,100,000,000 – yes, you read that right, multiple first page listing out of OVER 4 BILLION SEARCHES!! – there were some radically strange things going on that we uncovered but I’ll save that story one for another day.)

I’ve had clients come to me that have wasted tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on “guru’s” and other consultants. And within the first few minutes we could identify the problem.

Bottom line: you must be able to decipher fact from fiction and the truth from fantasy and seduction. If you can’t you’re doomed and will waste money, and even worse, massive amounts of time.

With the exhaustive expansion of online media and ways of getting traffic, if you can’t decipher this on your own, then I suggest you have a trusted adviser you can turn to. The bible says there’s safety in a multitude of counselors. Whether you read the bible or not, this is good common sense. Who are your trusted advisers?

And with all the seduction and wolves in sheep’s clothing out there, sometimes messages like this get missed.

A problem I have is I don’t have a bright shiny object I pitch.

What I do have is:

• time tested and proven, yet cutting edge and radically different methods for increasing sales
• what’s working now
• and straight answers for today’s problems

I guess that’s why people keep coming back to me for advice and allow me to help.

In your business, your clients and prospects are getting pitched garbage and B.S. too. If you help them decipher what’s real and what’s fantasy, they will keep coming back and refer more business to you.

Blessings,

P.S. Amazing how a good rant can improve your mood!

 

What I Learned From My 2 Day Old Son

First of all I feel blessed and honoured to be the proud daddy of baby #4 – my son Ryden James Goegan.

What a cute little guy eh? That rounds it out to 2 boys and 2 girls. So we have an even balance of testosterone and estrogen in our house. (even though I know the estrogen always wins – us wise ones let them!! Lol.

Both baby and mom are home and doing fine. My wife enjoyed her full 3 Day, 2 Night vacation getaway at the hospital. She LOVED getting served 3 meals a day, for which she didn’t have to go shopping, and having it cleaned up for her. And having someone check on her and see if she needed anything. What a great service eh?!! … I said if they threw in a pedicure and manicure we might never get her back! … I’m glad to have them back home.

When they were in the hospital I learned, (or re-learned) a lesson when he was 2 days old.

… I took a few days off from my busy schedule and was playing Mr. Mom with the other 3 kiddos. I had a bunch of things bouncing around in my head and was feeling a little guilty about taking time off from work. Afterall, I have goals, deadlines, client commitments, and objectives I’m striving after. And the thought running through my mind was “How can I afford to take time off? I’ve got too much to do!”

Sad but true. I get caught up in my busy little world and unfortunately the pace in my head sometimes is too ridiculously fast. Ever have a problem with an overactive mind and have challenges slowing down? I do.

So what did I learn?

I learned to slow down again. My son sleeps. He slowly wakes and adjusts to the world around him. He opens his eyes ever so casually. He eats and pauses. Then eats some more. He burps and plays. Then he sleeps. Everything happens at such a relaxed pace. I strayed from that and forgot what that was like.

I think I will remind myself to be more relaxed.

… and maybe burp and play more?!!

Happy Easter.

Blessings,

What’s The Deal With Getting Hot Website Traffic Anyways?!!

That’s a common question that I will debunk right here for you.

There are so many traffic options available it’s mind boggling – Facebook, Twitter, Social Media, Youtube, SEO, SEM, Adwords, PPC, CPM, Affiliates, Re-targeting, e-blasts, direct mail, etc.. I recommend you have several traffic sources working for you. The problem I see is that most business owners are so busy being successful that they don’t have the time to invest or don’t have limitless funds. It can be overwhelming. So with all the options available how do you know what one you should start with? How do you know what ones are right for you?

Did you know that not all of them are right for everyone? Did you know that there is one type that is best for you?

And why does it seem so hard to get a good answer to this question?

Look, everyone is pitching their stuff and most of it sounds so stinking good doesn’t it?!! Ever hear anything like this: “Buy my stuff and you will have instant overnight success!!”? I read something recently about how someone added something like 15,000 people to their list by sending out something to 12 people that sent it to 47 people that sent it to 27 people. Wow!! Can you imagine!!! … sounds like a good MLM pitch doesn’t it?!!

… by the way, I wish it were that easy!! Because then I could be sitting on the beach sipping Pina Colada’s and Mai-Tai’s!! Heck, WE ALL COULD!!! (but wait, who would serve us drinks and wash our Lamborghini’s?)

Ok, so if you’re into La-La-Land fantasies, you’re in the wrong spot because you won’t get that here. I’m typing this wishing insanely I could be out playing with my wife and kids. Fact is I’m working today because I didn’t get the work done that I wanted to in order to hit some of my milestones.

Now I hope you see a common word in the paragraph above – “work”. And that is precisely the dividing line with the type of traffic you should focus on getting.

What do I mean?

There are 2 basic ways to get traffic to your website:

1. One way requires a lot of ongoing manual labour
2. The other involves setting up systems that will then deliver ongoing traffic automatically

So what one is BEST for you?

Depends – do you like ongoing manual labour or do you like setting up systems?

For me, I am what I call “ambitiously lazy”. Which means I like to do the work and set systems up, and then sit back and watch them deliver an ongoing, continuous, scalable stream of results. For my personality, this is the best option. Because I have no desire to tweet and post daily. Who knows, maybe that will change over time. For now, I prefer to have systems do the work for me.

For you, ask yourself the same question – do you like ongoing manual labour or do you like having systems deliver ongoing results.

If you like manual labour – then social media is excellent for you. Tweet, post, tweet some more, post some more. Be constantly adding followers, friends and likes. This option requires less work over the short haul and much more work over the long haul.

If you prefer to have systems do all the hard work for you. Then Adwords, PPC, SEO, SEM, etc. are the best options for you. This option requires more work initially to research and set your systems up. It also requires less work over the long haul. One last point, putting systems to work for you will deliver scalable results (picture a volume control knob on your stereo – the more traffic you want, the more you turn the knob up).

Most entrepreneurs and small business owners I work with are so busy being successful that they don’t have a lot of time to invest. So make sure you have an idea of what type of person you are before jumping on any traffic bandwagon. There is no right or wrong answer. Only the one that is right for you.

And when you do decide, whatever direction you choose, attack it with focus, wisdom and determination.

Hope this help.

Blessings,

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