Episode 13 Where in the world is Julian

June 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment

In episode 13 I say “Hi!” to viewers who have been with us for our first 12 episodes and “Hola” to our new YouTube viewers.

First, I will catch you up on what I have been doing and then…

I figured I’d name our show since I’m in it for the long haul:

Local Knowledge. That’s the name! The World’s First Video Podcast dedicated to Local Internet Marketing.

…and finally I discuss how our next sessions will cover the topic of web design for small business (on a shoestring budget of course).

Julian Seery Gude
ed, Local Na8ion
www.localna8ion.com

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, News, Reviews & Rants

Get listed in local online directories in one easy step

May 29, 2008 | 1 Comment

In my last post Cast a wide net with local online directories I discussed the benefits of listing your business in as many legitimate local online directories and guides as possible. It’s all about being found when it counts: when people are looking for you or looking to buy what you have, an area where local online directories like YellowPages.com really shine. Here’s the kicker, getting listed in major local online directories also improves your organic local search engine rankings by raising your page rank on search engines like Google.

These are powerful advantages that you need to employ in any local small business online marketing plan.

I wrapped up my post by mentioning that there are tools and services available in the market today to get your business listed in the multitude of online directories in one easy step. Most of the solutions in this arena are in the $200 to $300 range and I believe that this represents a very fair value given the amount of time it takes to enter/correct these listings yourself.

That got me thinking that it would be great if there was a non-profit organization that standardized these listing practices and helped both the directory companies AND the small business owner get their information listed both “accurately” and “everywhere” for FREE.

While that nirvana HAS NOT been fully realized yet there is a good effort underway that could get us there and it’s damn close to free.

Users of UniversalBusinessListing.org pay only $30 to get listed in over 25 local online directories and guides. Further, business users can keep their records fresh in those same directories for only $18 per year. The money, time savings, and practicality of this tool just blow me away.

Here’s my impartial testimonial. Before I found UniversalBusinessListing.org I planned to start my own service doing much the same thing and beat my competitors on price…by a lot. Because of UBL I’ve scrapped that plan. I now include UBL in all the work I do with clients, and starting today I’m bundling it in with my new product The Percolator, without raising my prices. The reason I’m using UBL now is the same reason you should. Saving loads of time and money. For me, I can replace hours of work in developing and maintaining automated robots to place client listings (OR doing it manually just like you would) or I can give UBL thirty bucks. There’s a tough choice.

Here are the basics of what you get with UniversalBusinessListing.org

You input your business information once at UBL’s site and get listed in 25 or more major local online directories/city guides
You pay a $30 fee
You pay an annual $18 fee to renew your listing in the same online directories
UBL provides you with confirmation of your listing in the directories with a url pointing to your listing
UBL lets you update your information at any time
UBL allows you to include additional ‘enhanced’ information in your listings such as pictures, directions, logo, etc.
UBL now includes the ability to get listed on online mobile directories and phones through their new partnership with MobileGates.

For a great interview about UniversalBusinessListing.org with co-founder Chris Travers, head on over to the Local Biz Bits blog penned by fellow online small business marketing Pro, Larry Sullivan.

Julian, ed Local Na8ion

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, Connect, News, Reviews & Rants

Cast a wide net with local online directories

May 27, 2008 | 3 Comments

cast a wide net on local online directories and guides for people who are looking for your solution
Whether you’re just starting your local web marketing or you’ve been at it for a while, there are some fundamentals that you must address.

The first is being found online when people go looking for what you sell. This is the first part of your “findability.” The second part of findability is for another post but to sum it up, it’s about saying and giving the buyer the relevant information they need to complete their search and ultimately select you as the provider of the solution or product they seek. The two together, being found by buyers, and saying the right thing to them at the right time, are your findability. Findability with your web site is what produces sales. When you think of online outreach I champion a targeted niche approach, when it comes to people seeking you out it’s better to think in terms of casting a wide net.

The main tool you should employ for being found, is Local Search Engine Optimization. The goal is to get your business listed higher in the natural, or so called organic search engine rankings. The vast majority of your efforts should be spent on Local SEO because that’s how the vast majority of consumers find you online.

The other way of increasing your local online findability has to do with appearing in myriad online directories and guides. While these products are used far less than search engines to locate providers of products and services they still represent an important market of buyers for you and shouldn’t be ignored.

These local online directories and guides include web sites like YellowPages.com, entertainment focused directories like CitySearch, newer local directories with a social media slant like Yelp, or specialty directories that cater to your industry or niche (like a restaurant or hotel getting listed in Zagat or Trip Advisor).

Surprisingly, getting listed in these online directories and guides does more than just the obvious step of getting you in said online directory. It also improves your organic local search engine optimization!

First, getting your business listed in the online directories lets people find you in searches. That part is as simple as it sounds. If you’re not in the directory you can’t be found. So the goal is to get listed. Second, all of these directories have the potential to link back to your main web site. That is if you’re in the directory and you bother to edit your listing to include your url. When you do, BINGO, it allows buyers to click on the link for your web site and find out more about you. Congratulations, you’ve just used an online directory listing to increase your chance of a sale.

Third, the link from major sites like YellowPages.com, Yelp.com and others also creates a link that raises the link popularity of your web site on search engines. Link popularity remains one of the most significant ways that search engines like Google and Yahoo! rank the importance of your web site, and therefore it’s relevance and position in search results. The more links from legitimate and highly ranked web sites, the more impact the link will have on your search engine rankings. Guess what the search engines think of big sites like Yelp.com, CitySearch, and Superpages.com? Right, they’re legitimate trusted sources of information on the web and due to that their legitimacy it high.

None of the benefits I’ve cited require you to purchase an ad of any kind. All you need is the free listing in order to be found and for the online directory and guide to provide you with the SEO “Google Juice” to drive your own web site’s natural search engine rankings higher.

It stands to reason then that your goal is to get listed in as many major and legitimate online directories and guides as you can. True. The problem is how much time it takes to set up your listings. This shouldn’t stop you from getting your listings set up.

Today, there are better ways to get your business listed in local online directories and guides and I’ll cover that in my next post!

Julian, ed Local Na8ion

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, Connect, News, Reviews & Rants

More news about online reviews

May 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I’ve written here before on Local Na8ion about the power of local online reviews. A story in USA Today on May 20th provides a nice summary of the pros and cons that should further wet your appetite. Here’s a quote and link to the full story titled “Businesses turn to online reviews to grow clientele” in USA Today.

“Reviews and star ratings are often cited in search results. A Google search for “Los Angeles chiropractor,” for instance, includes not only links to websites and descriptions, but also a 10-item list of local chiropractors with their addresses, reviews, star ratings and a local map at the top of the page.

“You’re seeing a lot of businesses fighting to get into that top 10,” says Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “This is the most privileged position on the Internet. It’s a big, prominent placement. If you’re there, you benefit, and if you’re not, you don’t.”

Julian
ed, Local Na8ion

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Connect, News, Reviews & Rants

Oh no, not another story on social media for small business

March 25, 2008 | 4 Comments

I know you are probably ready for a new topic other than social media for small business but I want to give you an important quick heads-up and link (hat tip to Ramon Ray over at smallBiztechnology.com for linking to this). I thought of just adding this as an addendum to my last video Podcast on social media but it’s too important to be that easily missed. What’s special about this article is its broad perspective. It gives you a picture of social media and blogs over the last two years, making it a worthy primer on the topic.

One of the points I made in my series is that aspects of social media (like blogs) have been over hyped. That’s resulted in people tuning them out - especially companies that look to more proven and mainstream ways to advertise and market their business.

Here’s an excerpt

“Monday 9:30 a.m. It’s time for a frank talk. And no, it can’t wait. We know, we know: Most of you are sick to death of blogs. Don’t even want to hear about these millions of online journals that link together into a vast network. And yes, there’s plenty out there not to like. Self-obsession, politics of hate, and the same hunger for fame that has people lining up to trade punches on The Jerry Springer Show. Name just about anything that’s sick in our society today, and it’s on parade in the blogs. On lots of them, even the writing stinks.

Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business—including yours.”

Here’s the full article called “Social Media Will Change Your Business“

Julian Seery Gude
editor, Local Na8ion
Where you are is where it’s at

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, Connect, News, Reviews & Rants

Review of Apple MacBook for Small Business - Display Dismay

March 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

G’Day Local Na8ion!

It’s time for a Small Business Tech Review of the Apple MacBook for $1,299. I’m catering this review to small business people like myself who need access to reliable, low-priced, do-it-all computers. If you’re considering creating web content, audio, or video content for your web site or local marketing effort then I strongly recommend Mac’s, and I’m not an Apple fanboy.

While I’m not an Apple snob, I will admit to being a complete Geek. Don’t worry though, I won’t inflict my disease upon you! In fact, here’s what I usually say about business and technology:

“…with technology specifically we often lose sight of people. At exceler8 and Local Na8ion we love to experiment with the leading edge of web marketing and technology but we do so in the pursuit of value, not at the expense of it.” - Julian’s bio on Local Na8ion

For most of us, computers aren’t high entertainment as they are for me, they’re critical business tools. We take orders on them, make marketing materials, crank out business correspondence and balance the company books.

I’m a long time Windows user (aren’t we all) but I also really appreciate how Apple bounced back a few years ago and started making really high quality hardware and combining it with a rock solid operating system - OS X.

Today, there’s no way I’d buy a PC with the sad state of the Windows operating system (XP is now solid but feature-poor compared to Mac’s OS X and Vista is a joke).

I splurged on a PowerBook (the high end version) over three years ago and it was everything I’d hoped it would be in terms of being a digital creativity powerhouse. Apple has loads of built-in goodness when it comes to making user-generated content like audio, movies, and blog posts. For example, the bundled iMovie program that comes with OS X allows me to make all my Local Na8ion podcasts and it didn’t cost a thing.

Now that Apple allows you to run XP or Vista on your new Mac there’s really no reason NOT to buy a Mac anymore since you can now run legacy (er, old ass) PC only software on a Mac. In fact, a few months ago, PC Magazine listed the best (fastest) laptops to run MS Vista and the 17″ MacBook Pro was the top system. That says a lot of good things about Apple Hardware. Also, in my experience working at large companies, plugging an Apple Mac laptop in to your corporate network is dead easy.

Unfortunately my old PowerBook is now SO slow when I’m processing video (very resource intensive) for Local Na8ion and doing my client work I had no choice but to upgrade. Hey, that’s my excuse but Shannon didn’t buy it. This time around I went for the lower cost MacBook. There’s a $700 difference in the MacBook I purchased vs. the higher end MacBook Pro. What do you get for an additional $700?

Bigger hard drive (200GB instead of the 160GB I got). Big deal.
More mousepad gestures. Cool, but no big deal.
PC card slot (very helpful for business for high-speed wireless Internet cards so popular with road warriors like my wife Shannon). OK, I can live without it since I’m not a road warrior.
A dedicated NVIDIA GeForce display card

Now, that doesn’t look like $700 in value to me. In fact, I liked the smaller MacBook for its lighter weight and dimensions. The keyboard is nice (not as good as the Pro but still good) and the glossy screen looked rich and colorful in the showroom. A note on the glossy vs. matte display. People usually have a strong preference for one over the other with most coming down on the matte screen side. Why? The matte screen is much easier to read in outside lighting (the glossy display reflects everything like a mirror when outdoors). For the MacBook, Apple chose the Henry Ford Model T manufacturing method: You can have any display on the MacBook as long as it’s the glossy one. I prefer the glossy screen (it’s the glitzy Great White Way Marketer in me) so the glossy screen wasn’t a problem.

So how does my new MacBook perform? Everything is fantastic except for one very important thing - the display quality. If you plan on hooking up your MacBook to a larger external display I think you’ll be very disappointed with the MacBook’s screen.

According to post-purchase research I’ve done I’m not the only one. You can’t just blame it on the integrated Intel display adaptor either since it’s commonly used on Windows based PC’s and similar PC systems haven’t generated near the kind of angst that the MacBook screen has. In part, that’s because people expect Apple to nail things that involve design, look, feel, and craftmanship. Can you imagine an iPod with a badly pixelated screen?

If you’re just using the MacBook as a laptop, then by all means purchase the less expensive MacBook and save your business $700 in expense. If you like working with photos, images and er…web sites, which all rely heavily on display quality AND you use an external monitor, get the MacBook Pro. If you don’t need a laptop you can spend $1,499 for the iMac desktop and get the same exact processor (2.4GHz Core Duo 2) with a beautiful 20″ screen and a solid video card - the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256mb of display memory.

I’m still undecided as to what I’ll do exactly. I might just get the desktop for the $200 more and use my old PowerBook when I’m out at the park with my kids. Then agian, theMacBook Pro is an awfully nice machine. Would you put in a good word with Shannon for me? Better yet, hire me so I can afford to buy one!

Here’s a video review of the Apple MacBook on my personal blog with some additional links if you want to know more about my MacBook display dismay.

Update: I’ve gone back and re looked using my 17″ Sony Display and I’m much happier with it. The crazy pixelation is gone. I’ve also continued researching my issues and found that most people are going with a maximum size of 20″ for their desktop monitor (my Samsung is a 22″) if they use a MacBook with an external display. 20 inches is sufficient to me and I’m now moving into new monitor research mode.

For now I’ve decided that I can live with the smaller screen (I still have two desktops after all) and don’t want to give up all the stuff I like about the smaller MacBook (and its great price) for either a desktop iMac or a much more expensive MacBook Pro. My original recommendation still stands - just know what you’re getting into before you buy!

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, News, Reviews & Rants

Eight successful traits for entrepreneurs and life

February 24, 2008 | 5 Comments

I’ve always been fascinated by success and as an entrepreneur I bet you are as well. No matter our position or our accomplishments we are captivated by the feats of great people and know that we can learn from their experience and by imitating their habits and behavior.

I started my own quasi-research project on success in earnest when I was nineteen. On my sales calls I would inevitably run into successful people and I began to ask them about their journey. From person to person, despite wildly different circumstances, their answers were very similar. The inspiration for my research was rooted in my own quest to succeed. Today, my post started with a video from Richard St. John, who identified 8 traits of successful people, built from both his own experience with success and his research of some of the most successful people alive today. Not surprisingly they sound a lot like those business people that I spoke with years ago.

I was working my first ‘big job’ as an outside sales rep for GTE Yellow Pages in San Jose California. To my knowledge, I was the youngest outside sales rep at that time working in GTE’s nationwide sales force. People were jealous, and while I didn’t fully understand that, I did feel that I had arrived. Ego. It was 1988, I had a company car with a mobile phone and a salary that had just tripled from my previous job. I received my job offer a mere three days after arriving in San Jose with all my worldly possessions (er, CD’s) in the 1985 Saab that I had driven across the country. I had dreams of continuing my technology journey in Silicon Valley that I had started in New Hampshire working at a Tech startup which had grown from around six people when I joined them to over 150 when I left. It turned out that it would be a long time before I got to use my skills with computers and technology as I’d intended before getting sidetracked in the advertising world.

The next two years at GTE really kicked my ass, culminating in GTE firing me at 21 with my wife of the time about to give birth to my first son. My mortgage on my first house was due and my wife was in the last few weeks of her job before maternity leave and the last pittance of family revenue coming in. I was alternately job prospecting and watching the first Gulf War on CNN. It was the end of a two year roller coaster ride where I experienced feast and famine as I struggled to be the bread earner while selling ‘Neighborhood’ phone books (hint, they’re the kind people don’t use in favor for their ‘real’ phone book)

I had arrived in San Jose from New Hampshire where I had taken my first steps towards adult freedom when I moved away from my father in Australia to take care of his childhood home in New Hampshire. I was resolute to move away from all that I knew at sixteen to live on my own so I could begin my quest for world domination,. My version of world domination started out by selling clothes in a main street small business - an old fashioned clothier that had been around for over forty years. Ah, the virtue of youth - blissful ignorance.

I learned a lot from the small businesses I worked at before beginning my corporate career at GTE. Among many things, GTE taught me to overcome adversity in a hard knocks way - and not just from getting fired. Last night over dinner my father was just recalling a related scene from one of our favorite movies, The Natural starring Robert Redford. “Welcome to the Majors Mr. Hobbs” the radio announcer comments sardonically after Redford’s character Roy Hobbs gets his first taste of how hard and fast the ‘bigs’ are.

In my case my firing came after I was a whopping 5.6% off my annual sales goal (94.4% to budget). I had been dealt an account that was six months past due that was literally seven times the size of a normal Yellow Pages account at GTE. With GTE’s system at the time I was responsible for collecting the past due amount and renewing their sizable ad program or it would count against my sales goals. Oh, did I mention that the advertiser had to pay for any renewed advertising all in advance for the entire year, not month to month. The advertiser felt that the ads in the phone book hadn’t done a lick to help their business and knew they could get away without paying the bill without any repercussion since they had no intent of renewing their ads. After all, they had their ads in the core phone book - the Pacific Bell SMART Yellow Pages. To GTE’s credit, both my sales manager and my regional general manager tried to save the account. It was a lot of money, even out of their much deeper pockets. The only real option was to outsell the loss by bringing in a lot of new business. And I did close a lot of new business. But not quite enough.

I learned a lot about myself. I didn’t give up until it was obvious my sales manager wasn’t going to keep the faith. He knew then what I would not accept, that I wasn’t cut out for that job. I had come to not believe in that product - my experience taught me that neighborhood phone books worked too infrequently for my customers and after a time I couldn’t look people in the eye and tell them to spend the little money they had on a false promise. My manager Steve could tell that I didn’t believe and that’s why he fired me. I would have as well - it was the right call for both me and the company.

Back then I felt like such a miserable failure I didn’t know how I could pick up the pieces. Even years later I would drive close to the office in San Jose and my stomach would drop and my mind would flash back to those last moments.

Much later I realized my firing was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I came to see that I learned more from those two years and that experience about business and life than I had in my previous 21 years and in many that followed. I had been well trained, I learned to follow a process and system, I learned discipline, and how to sell with real skill, overcoming a persistent shyness and introversion unfit for the sales game.

Good thing for having a back up plan. Six weeks earlier I had passed a sales assessment and interview process with the ‘real’ Yellow Pages (Pacific Bell) and a couple of weeks after getting fired at GTE I had a new job working for them in their Oakland sales branch. I’ve had good fortune as well. So began a really solid career at Bell that lasted for ten years where I worked in sales, sales training, strategic planning and business development for our Internet effort - I even worked directly for the President of the company and was one of two representatives sent to iron out our merger with SBC (now AT&T again). Eventually my career there led me to the high tech work that I was meant for (helping re-launch Pacific Bell’s Internet Yellow Pages and roll it out to PacBell and then SBC’s Yellow Pages sales force). What a ride.

Today I have over 20 years of big company stripes to my credit, I won awards and consistently beat objectives, I learned how to be a big earner working at big companies and also discovered that I had lost myself almost completely in the process. I learned that money wasn’t happiness but that it does help fund dreams where you can find a happiness in the pursuit. What brought me back was my older brother’s untimely death and a similarly tragic experience when a former boss and good friend took his own life. These experiences made it clear to me that life is too short to do things that you are not meant to do simply for a paycheck.

Today, I’m much the beginner that I was back at GTE. I’m an aspiring entrepreneur and stay-at-home dad. I’ve spent much more of the last 2 1/2 years being a stay-at-home dad trying to make sure my kids are OK and marriage number two doesn’t get lost in the details. I have my fair share of scars from the small scrapes and major battles I’ve waged in my personal and professional life. I have spent time feeling sorry for myself and licking my wounds. I’ve been inspired and brilliant. I’ve reached my limits in areas and found ways to ignore them to my benefit.

I have not succeeded as a small business yet. I’ve really just begun my journey. I believe I will succeed. I really believe.

Why is that? Is it belief without evidence? No, it’s that I’ve done enough in life to know that when you do the right things, long enough, consistently, then good things start to happen. I’ve got a lot of challenges ahead of me in both my personal and professional life. I’ve got four kids, and I’ve got to overcome that I’ve let them down at times. Not just them either. That’s more important than any job or entrepreneurial aspirations. I’ve got a beautiful wonderful wife that struggles with a rabid corporate career in order to support me and our kids as I once did. Our circumstances find both of us fighting to remember that we’re a couple, and not just a mommy and daddy, a boss, a resource, or a pay check. We’re not just cannon fodder. None of us are.

As I’ve professed, I can’t claim to be a successful entrepreneur yet. I have proven myself as a successful marketing and advertising man. I know more about marketing and advertising than a lot of people in the world, and more still about online marketing and publishing and cutting edge methods of connecting people, ideas, aspirations, money and dreams. If that’s something that you need or that interests you I can probably help.

Soon I’ll be rolling out some new products designed to help not so average small and medium sized business realize their not so average goals. Hopefully we’ll all realize some dreams along the way. These products will be designed to bolster my free articles and lessons that will continue to be the staple of Local Na8ion’s offering (our three phase online marketing method that I’m building). As far as my new products go, this article is as much a call to action for me, as it is a notice to you of things to come. I know to find the right product formula I’ll need to follow the traits featured in the video below. I’m going to have to work harder and work smarter, all while not losing sight of the point of all this - my wife, my kids and my family. It’s not going to be easy but it never is.

Three years ago I lost thirty five pounds of white collar fat by running and I eventually ran my first marathon last year. A few months ago a pain in my neck finally drove me to an orthopedic surgeon’s office. The MRI revealed a ruptured disc in my neck. He said, ’stop running Julian.’ But I love to run and it’s been a powerful metaphor and practical way to get my self back. What to do? The doc said swimming would work and he gave me the go ahead to strength train to my hearts content. All he warned me off of was dead lifts. That sane advice was more about proper technique than anything else. The Doc’s advice comes from a good place because most people don’t bother to learn the correct technique for dead lifts, just like we don’t learn the right way to market or manage our business.

Strength. That’s the genesis of my post today. It’s one of the things we need in order to succeed in life and I’m talking about the physical, spiritual and mental side of strength - they ALL matter. Morning coffee in hand I headed over to see what was happening on , a new favorite site of mine authored by a successful young man and blogger named Mehdi. If you want inspiration on what you can do by using free online tools and methods to build your business and make money look no further than Mehdi. His story is really impressive and inspiring.

Among the tips on Mehdi’s site on proper lifting form and 5X5 workouts (CAREFUL this link is known to make your body strong and give you more energy for achieving your goals). I found the video from Richard St. John on Mehdi’s site showcasing the 8 habits and behaviors of successful people. The video is from the acclaimed annual meeting of minds called TED that takes place once a year in Monterey California just south of my old home of fourteen years in the Bay Area.

Maybe something I said in my post reflected some of your own experience and touched on some of what you have done to enjoy success. If you can, I’d love for you to share your feelings and experiences on the topic in a comment here. But, I also respect that many of us hold these important moments close to the vest and that’s just fine by me. It’s taken me twenty years to put this story out there. Enjoy, and good luck to you in your contined success!

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, News, Reviews & Rants

Free Online Small Business Marketing and Publishing

January 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Just what do we mean by FREE and Low Cost?

Here at LocalNa8ion we show small business people how to create content, publish it online using an easy-to-update web site publishing tool AND market it online for FREE (or very low cost). Like as in FREE to $10 a month - tops. Really - no bull.

What’s the deal?

We know this sounds like a lot of marketing crap. But wait!

When we say FREE we mean that if you do it yourself it won’t cost you any money.

If you were to have a chart it would look something like this.

So, following this chart (bottom left) if you have NO time to put our do-it-yourself methods to work, than you’re going to have to pay the Piper. The Piper, aka Local Na8ion or someone else of your choice, accepts money.

If you are willing to put in your own time (that’s the top right of our oh-so-humorous chart) then you’ll only have an out-of-pocket of about $10 a month (that’s to pay for NEW web hosting). If you already have a web site host, as many business people do, it won’t even cost you $10 a month (hence the totally free promise we make on our web site). See, we weren’t pulling your leg.

By reading Local Na8ion you’ll get ideas on how to easily create content for your web site on your own, you’ll learn how to select and install (with one-click) a state-of-the-art publishing tool, and you’ll learn about free methods of online marketing that can connect you with new local customers employing methods like local search engine optimization, online word-of-mouth marketing, and blog marketing.

That’s the deal. There’s no catch. It’s the do-it-yourself model and we’re already publishing our how-to articles organized in the framework we call our local three-phase online marketing method.

Oh, you haven’t read about our local online three-phase marketing method?

Read about our revolutionary local three-phase online marketing method™: create, publish, and connect™.

Local Internet Marketing, Local Online Publishing, Small Business Resources, Free Online Small Business Marketing and Publishing, Small Business Marketing

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, Connect, Create, News, Reviews & Rants, Publish & Design

Small business owners can turn to Tiger Woods for inspiration

January 12, 2008 | 2 Comments

Short on time? Here's the bottom line. Short on time? Here’s the Bottom Line!

This article showcases two inspiring quotes and a few observations about those quotes that are relevant to our own journey over the often rocky road of building a successful business.

Vision, Hard work & Role Models

For this weekend’s post I want to get a little off the topic of local online marketing and publishing and talk about a subject near and dear to our hearts: our small business. Yes, the venerable small to medium sized enterprise or SME that powers much of the U.S. economy and that of the world over. I’d like to take a quick moment to discuss what inspires us, shapes our thinking and our motivation, and perhaps give you one example that I found inspiring today that I hope can help us both in our business. With that, here’s a recent quote from a new father and over-achiever that I found really powerful.

“I view my life in a way … I’ll explain it to you, OK?” he told his small audience in Florida. “The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that’s how I look at my life. I will be better as a golfer, I will be better as a person, I will be better as a father, I will be a better husband, I will be better as a friend. That’s the beauty of tomorrow. There is no such thing as a setback. The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better.” - Tiger Woods, from an interview written by Jaime Diaz and published on Golf Digest and ESPN.

….and this on what I’ll call Tiger Woods’ success ethic:

“But as gifted as he is, I know that every piece of swing that works the way he wants it to work, he’s had to fight for. He basically tells me, ‘You know how to work hard, so you’ve got the toughest part down. Keep learning and keep grinding. And see how far it will take you.’” - quote from Corey Carroll, aspiring Golf Pro and a friend and mentee of Tiger Woods

If you go on to read the entire article titled “The Year of Living Dangerously” you’ll see that much of Tiger’s new found wisdom and high performance is attributed to his father’s lessons, and the soul searching his father’s passing has produced, the ideas it has solidified, and the focus it has brought.

Three things resonated deeply in me about Woods’ quotes.

That Tiger is always driving towards the future
That he focuses on learning
That he works his ass off to make his future a reality (”keep grinding”)

Sounds like the definition of an entrepreneur or SME to my ears. It’s obvious from the story that Tiger has also found a way to integrate his whole person in his game (his business) and I think that’s a key takeaway as well. I know my choice to leave Corporate America after 20+ years to help raise my two youngest kids as a stay-at-home dad while starting a small business with my wife Shannon was the best thing I could have done. But it’s been really hard every step of the way and every day is a humbling learning experience. Can you relate? It’s difficult to stomach sometimes but it’s a sign to me that I’m on the right track as well. Sometimes we just need a little inspiration to keep fighting the good fight.

I’m going to keep learning and keep grinding and I’m also going to keep trying to learn from the lessons that my parents, my friends, my losses, and my wins have taught me. I hope I can learn from you as well. It would give me great pleasure to help you along on your journey as well, whether it’s sharing a tip on local search or the latest Web 2.0 marketing tactic, or maybe just a well earned laugh from a shared moment. I hope you’ll keep coming back for more of the same here at Local Na8ion and I hope you let me know some of your own inspirations in business and in life by leaving me a comment on this post.

Posted by Julian | Filed Under Blog, News, Reviews & Rants

Timing is everything - why NOW is the time for a revolution in local Internet marketing

December 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Episode 2: In this twelve minute LOCAL Na8ion video I talk about the three reasons that NOW is the right time to use new revolutionary tools and methods to market your local business online.