Fresh Content Is A Challenge

I have not been active in my blog for a very long time and as a result my page ranking has dropped in Google. If you are running a business it is difficult to keep your blog active daily with fresh content that is relevant and topical. But you must if you want to enjoy success on the search engines. On the internet; text is the 'bomb'. Stale text is the 'bum'. My best advice is to have a dedicated blogger for your organization. This person can solicit content from your relevant departments or look to outside help. For example; WSI Digital Marketing can bring this service to your company. Blogs rule if done right.

When Is Family Important In Business ownership?

When is family important in business ownership? All the time. Most entrepreneurs pursue their passion. As most people who pursue their passion, we can get so involved (24/7) that we forget those around us that most matter. Ask yourself if your passion is to achieve desires, goals and dreams that are important to you or you and your family. There is a difference. If the time you give is required to achieve your mutually agreeable goals then you are supported and have a stronger probability to succeed. If your goals are yours and not theirs then you may be not only working alone, you may end up alone or with a new family.

Sit down in the early stages of your business and discuss the requirements to succeed, such as the extra time in the beginning to build a new business and ensure that you all agree that this is understood and supported to achieve your mutual goals.

If you do this, you can thank me later. :)

Beware of Craigs List Secret Shopper Cheque Scam

My daughter almost got taken in a fake cheque moving scam advertised through Craigs list as a job posting for secret shopper of various online and offline stores. Fortunately, we (parents) found out what she did before it was too late. How does it work?

We arrived home from work and at our door was a couriered envelope addressed to my daughter and addressed from a residence in Ithaca, NY, Min Park. In the envelope was a cashiers cheque drawn on the Bank of Nova Scotia for $3,900. payable in cash to the bearer (my daughter). Who made out the cheque? The Ottawa-Carleton Education Network. The bank is legit and from what we can tell, so is the Ottawa-Carleton Education Network which is a non-profit organization.

We immediately questioned this as my daughter had no idea why she would receive this cheque. She, needless to say, was very excited to go cash the cheque but she also knew this was not only mysterious it was wrong until we confirmed the legitimacy of this cheque. Cooler heads prevailed and we began to google every piece of information we had and yet we found nothing to suggest it may be nothing more than some strange clerical error. We decided to call Ottawa-Carleton the next day once we confirmed they were not open in the evening. We did call the next day but not before we found out what was going on.

My daughter received an email on her mobile phone shortly after we finished our exhaustive online research that ended with no real answers one way or the other. The email was from the company that supposedly hired her to be a secret shopper. News to her. The email instructed her by stating we confirmed you signed receipt of the envelope. Not true. It was sitting on our door step when we arrived home. The email went on to instruct her to deposit the cheque in her bank account. Then she was to keep her total fees and expenses of $520. yet further instructed her to send them a cheque to the Philippines of $3,400. WE NOW KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON...SHE WAS BEING SCAMMED!

The scam; the bank clears the cheque and gives her the cash within days. The bank actually finds out the cheque is fake later and comes back to her to repay and reserves the right to charge her with fraud. Wait! It gets worse. We called the police and we were told that this is a very common scam and because we did not cash the cheque we are not victimized and even if we did cash the cheque, all they could do is file a report. Reason? Because of the difficulty of tracking the paper trail to the con artists behind this who are international and in many cases in countries with no police and inter-governmental co-operation. "It is just not worth the effort for anything under $10,000.", stated the police officer. This is the genius of the scam. The con artists know this crime will never be pursued. The police told me that all we can do is what we are doing and that is to educate the public. First, we were told, is report it to Craigs list. Before we could, the job posting my daughter responded to had already been removed. As I'm sure it is always done for everyone of these scam ads. The police also advise us to contact phonebusters.com. We will and we also contacted Ottawa-Carleton who said 'Oh no, not you too'. They have been receiving calls on this for the last few days. We were the only one, as of yet, who did not cash the cheque and they asked us if we could send it to them for their own investigation. We will send them the cheque as it holds no value to anyone other than them.

I'm glad I have this blog to post our story and hope you pass it along to as many people as possible. Through the power of our online social network we can educate many people to watch for this scam that preys on honest people who only want 'extra income' or employment.

What Happened To Sincerity?

The following is from an email I received from Ari Galper, 'Unlock The Game'. A sales coach who I have followed and studied from for years. This is worth the read if you are making sales cold calls and using a script:


Click Here

Google TV, Brilliant!

More and more of us, consumers and customers alike are spending more and more time on the Internet. We have become multi-taskers. We have the attention span of a spoiled child. Our time is precious and we want answers to our questions now, not later. The Internet has changed the way we live our lives and as a result; has caused business to move their advertising budgets online. We have all seen how hard hit the publishing industry has been over the last couple of years. In addition, in the UK last year, more time was spent on the Internet than was spent on TV. The reality is, publishing and TV has changed, we are all publishers through the explosion of blogs and other social media portals. Everyday people can and are becoming a more believable champion of our products and services than the overpaid actors touting our claims on TV, Radio and in Print. We have already seen print and radio move to the Internet and as well TV. Well, leave it to Google to recognize this opportunity to be the search engine for all your social media searching. Check out this short Google TV video. We are here, we have come, now business where are you?

Will Twitter Survive?

This post is an observation. We all know that Social Media and Digital Marketing is changing the face of traditional marketing and advertising mediums. If you are in business you need to go where your customers are and that is on the internet. You need to go where they are on the internet and you need to get your message in front of your target market in an engaging and interactive way. Twitter is a major player today in this arena. But, who is on Twitter? Is it your target market? Is it the next generation of 30 somethings? My two children, son and daughter in their early to mid twenties, are not on Twitter. In fact, they are not on the internet. Certainly not as much as they use to be. You need to understand that they are the generation who grew up with a computer and the internet. They were power users. Today they are mobile and they are mobile telephony power users.

They took me and my fiance to dinner on Saturday and the conversation turned to Twitter and Facebook. I noticed they were not on these platforms as much if at all anymore. They looked at me like I was a freak. "Dad, cool people don't use Twitter. As for the internet. who has the time."


My son just bought his first home and didn't even bother to install the internet. He will eventually but it was not a priority. He is too busy and he lives on his mobile phone. He can access the internet through his mobile phone. In fact, as he said; "...no one calls on the phone anymore, we text". My daughter agreed.


This got me to think how fast the internet and the technologies it has spawned has changed so fast and is changing faster. In other words, is it possible a power house like Twitter can grow so quickly in 4 to 5 years can actually die a slow death or go dead like a super nova? Now I know that Twitter adapted and just became mobile. What I'm talking about is the possibility that the future of the internet is we may see new internet businesses come from no where, grow quickly and then disappear just as quickly.


I don't have a crystal ball to see the future. This is just speculation based on a casual conversation and observation. If this becomes reality it means, our business needs to adapt to change quickly to survive. Are you ready for this new changing and evolving economic future? Are you working with Digital Marketing Professionals to ensure you are taking advantage today of Digital Marketing? And, are you preparing for change? If not, you may become the next Dodo...extinct.

Rona MS 30K Bike Tour

Together we will end MS.


I raise money for all the people with multiple sclerosis who need help financially to get through life and to help increase funding for research so that one day they will find a cure.

Personally, I have an uncle, an aunt and a soon to be sister in-law, all living with MS. To watch them go through the nasty MS development stages fighting to have a life of independence and ultimately life is my inspiration to walk, ride and champion this cause.

By supporting someone in our fundraising events, you can make a difference in the life of someone with multiple sclerosis. Proceeds from MS Society fundraising events provide support and services to help those living with this disease, their families and caregivers as well as fund research with three primary goals: to find a cause and cure for MS, repair nervous system damage caused by MS and stop MS attacks. We believe we will end multiple sclerosis, and with your help we can get there. Please give generously. Click Here to Donate to my 30k bike ride. Thank you!

N-Viro - A Good idea which so many people dont even know exists

N-Viro International Corporation develops and licenses its technology to municipalities and private companies. Their patented processes use lime and/or mineral-rich, combustion byproducts to treat, pasteurize, immobilize and convert wastewater sludge and other bio-organic wastes into biomineral agricultural and soil-enrichment products with real market value. The company has generated sales in excess of $40 million dollars, since its initial public offering in October of 1993, which was underwritten by Robertson Stephens, Raymond James, Oppenheimer & Co., and Paine Webber.
Watch YouTube Video

Two Cats Flirting

I was having dinner with a friend last night from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and he told me a story of two cats flirting. He had just arrived home late at night and was still in his car when he noticed a Tom Cat following behind a female cat. The Tom Cat would get the female cats attention with a moaning meow and the female cat would continue walking away but clearly puff up and look the other way. This continued until the Tom Cat had enough and turned away. The female cat noticed soon after that the Tom cat’s meows had stopped. What did she do? She turned around and pursued the Tom cat with a similar meow.

Why do I repeat this story to you in my blog? Because we both agreed last night as business owners, our success really began to grow when we least needed the work. When we had the sincere lack of interest in if we got a clients business or not, that is when the client wanted us more and was prepared to pay a premium for our services. The key word here is 'sincere'. We really didn't care because we were very busy. The challenge is how to do this when you are not busy. Instead of creating a fake lack of interest when you are not busy, reconsider not taking on jobs at cost or below cost because you are not busy. Too many times I would be caught in a project losing money and was unable to take on a profitable job. Lesson learned; pursue profit and play hard to get. I would be curious to know if this cat story has any other meanings to my readers. Please comment.

Travelling in the 21st Century

I'm in Estonia and then travelling to Latvia, Lithuania and then a few days at the end in Frankfurt, Germany on business and pleasure for 2 weeks. I'm amazed at how easy it is for me to continue doing business with my office at home. The internet has reached many parts of the world with high speed reaching even remote parts of the world. The time zone difference allows me to act on questions and issues while my customers sleep and when I work in the night while they are awake.

Another aspect of the world is that business is the same the world over. We all want to grow our business and do it with the most cost effective marketing methods available today. Internet marketing is growing as more and more of us use the internet and with the ease of access to the internet for our customers growing globally, the internet has become the wrapper of the worlds economy.

We are and will continue to grow to be a digital world. I booked my airline tickets online. I reserved my rooms online. I even made last minute changes online. I stayed in touch with my business online and even with my family online (facebook). And now with you through my blog and Twitter. If you are in business you should already know that the internet is where your customers are and as a result you need to be marketing to them online. But do it right and hire a professional who can build a long benefiting online marketing strategy. Check out this offer from WSI: Click Here

WSI #1 Internet Services Franchise in 2010 - 10 Years Running

WSI Corporate has released a press release sharing this newsworthy announcement about their 2010 Entrepreneur Magazine Franchise 500 Rankings...
Franchise 500® rank:

#56 (2010); #57 (2009); #46 (2008); #42 (2007); #46 (2006);

Top Homebased Franchises:

#13 (2010); #12 (2009); #9 (2008); #12 (2007); #9 (2006);

America's Top Global Franchises:

#49 (2010); #49 (2009); #26 (2008); #36 (2007); #6 (2006);