I made a public declaration about six months ago to consistently post 2X (two times a week) for the rest of 2008.  It was more work than I originally realized, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of “referrals” and “comments” I’ve received ever on this blog ever since. Many thanks!

As I indicated on my Dec. 26th post, I’m only focusing on 4 marketing tasks to grow my business. I plan on “outsourcing” my weaknesses to vendors who play at things I work at.  One of my strengths is Blogging.

Here’s The Survey Question: If I blog 3X per week vs. 2X per week, will you read and comment on my posts?  If your answer is YES, then say so and give me your brief reason WHY. 

As Jim Rohn says, “The bigger the WHY, the easier the HOW.”  So if your answer is NO, I want your candor to tell me WHY.  Deal?

If I get a “Net Score” of 101 YESes (Total YESes minus Total NOs = Net Score), then every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in 2009 at 8:44am Eastern, you’ll see a new blog post.  If I don’t get that “Net Score” I’ll continue at 2X/week.

Make your YES/NO vote in the “Reply Box” (click “Comments”).

During the third week in December each year, I send out a holiday video message that stars our son, Gabriel and daughter, Breanna.

The ONE this year is my absolute favorite.  It was inspired by a life-lesson statement from Reginald Poitier, father of actor Sidney Poitier. 

Turn-up your speakers and click: www.HolidayGreetings2008.com

When you’re done watching it, post your comment so my kids can read it and feel free to forward this message to another dad.

Happy Holidays!

You have your WordPress blog - don’t you?  If not, you should.  Now let’s hook up your blog to Twitter.  What’s Twitter, you ask?

Tweets are short little posts commenting on what you are doing right now. The key to using Twitter effectively is participation. You must listen as well as speak. The more you listen and respond, the more people will ‘follow you’.

When you tweet, your message is broadcast to everyone who is following you.  If your ‘tweet’ is interesting, your followers will want to see what you are all about and will click over to your blog and have the opportunity to opt-in.

The more you interact, the more people will interact with you. So, go over to Twitter and set up an account. Search for people you know and start following them. Start ‘tweeting’ and watch what happens!

NOW let’s connect your blog and Twitter.  Get the WordPress plugin TwitterTools.  This plugin allows you to create a tweet from every new blog post - automagically!

Want to know the real secret?  Don’t stop at Twitter Tools.  Go back to Twitter later and tweet about your blog post.  Double the value of Twitter Tools AND your blog.

Modern research into a 40-year study (started back to 1971) concludes that “happiness is contageous”  (the full story is in Yahoo News).

The same U.K. research team that recently reported how obesity and smoking spreads in networks, now also concludes that the more happy people you know, the more likely you yourself will be happy.

Duh … right? 

But please continue reading because I think you’ll discover that finding and focusing on the happy people on your marketing team will create more growth for your business in 2009.

Marci Shimoff reported a similar conclusion during our 65-minute Virtual Book Tour for her runaway best-selling book,  Happy For No Reason 

(If you want free instant access to that VBT, just type-in (more…)

In Part 1 of this Marketing Paradoxes three part series, you learned about the Paradox of Distribution which I defined as follows:

“You can’t get adequate distribution of a product until you’ve proven it can sell; but you can’t prove a product can sell until you’ve gotten adequate distribution in the market.”  

In Part 2, you learned about the Paradox of Choice which I defined as: 

“The more choices you have, the more paralyzed you become as a result of your inability to make clear buying decisions.  The more indecisive you become, the less freedom you have in making buying decisions.”

In Part 3 (what you’re reading now), you’re about to discover (more…)

In Part 1 of this Marketing Paradoxes three part series, you learned about the Paradox of Distribution which I defined as follows:

“You can’t get adequate distribution of a product until you’ve proven it can sell; but, you can’t prove a product can sell until you’ve gotten adequate distribution in the market.”  

The second Marketing Paradox I want to delineate here is what’s known as the Paradox of Choice. 

In fact, it’s the actual title of a ground-breaking book that belongs in every marketing library called, The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less by best-selling author and social psychologist, Barry Schwartz.

Paradox #2: The Paradox of Choice

I define this paradox from a marketer’s perspective as: (more…)

If the only thing you are doing with your Article Marketing is publishing your articles on the Article Directories, then you are missing out on a great opportunity to repurpose and extend the reach of your articles.

Facebook and Twitter are two of the most popular and powerful social networking sites on the internet.  I recommend you take advantage of the opportunity they present to repurpose and extend the reach of your articles.

Here are three steps you can take on Facebook and two steps you can take on Twitter.

Three Ways on Facebook

Once you have set up your Facebook account, here are three powerful steps to take with your articles:

1) Notes section - In the notes section, you want to list your articles. I recommend (more…)