I'm in sort of in a quandry about what to do with my blog here.

I kind of want to rip off the restraints and do more than just business stuff... Michael... Live... In Concert....

But it is the perpetual destination for anyone wanting to dig me up on the web... forever.

So I'm not sure if I want it to be as zany and nutcracker fun as say... my Facebook account (which is more of a reflection of who I really am) - or do I want to keep it austere and just straight up biz?

My personal friends all know that I am pretty... shall we say... colorful... and involved in everything from politics to critiquing flavors of Hot Pockets for breakfast. Of course, my friend list includes close personal friends, school classmates, but also some of my wealthy business friends, former presidential candidates, and even sitting US Congressmen.

But the point is... I still control who gets into the party.

Facebook is like the neanderthal door man at the hottest dance club in town.

Will transitioning all of the raw me over to my blog in an open setting compromise me in some way down the road? Especially in a professional capacity?

I mean... is it a bad thing that my grandkids could pull my submissions to ratemypoo.com out of Google's cache in 30 years?

The web we weave for ourselves sometimes.... pun intended.

Gimme' some feedback here peoples. (that's Nerdy Redneck for POST A COMMENT)

All this social media this and that... everyone is a wannabe internet marketing guru this or that... it's enough to make me crazy sometimes.

So I started looking around for people in smaller, non-marketing related niches that are kicking butt with their social media presence, and I found two that you have probably never heard of - both leveraging social media to the hilt, and both in completely different, unrelated niches.

The first is Theresa Tiderington of REO Magic Team in Dayton, Ohio. Theresa is sledgehammering the local short sale and REO market by using Facebook, and other social media sites. She's buying properties for investors all over the United States, and while she doesn't have a giant following, she's got a very targeted one and consistently works her thing. http://www.reomagicteam.com/

The second is Rick Always, a DJ and dance party promoter in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rick has a very large following on Facebook, and is constantly promoting his events by inviting the several thousand people who are friends with him, or are fans of his Urban Pioneer Events. He's a bonafide social media rock star, constantly working his following and friend base. Although he's let some of his sites go for a while, he's constantly pounding Facebook events to promote his latest parties held at local venues and nightclubs in the Cincinnati area.

The point is, you don't have to be Gary Vaynerchuk or Chris Brogan to hit the ball out of the park with a social media grand slam. All you have to do is leverage the tools that are available to you, and work your system over and over and over and over and over.

Anyone who knows me to any level beyond text on the screen, knows that one of my trademarks is my Aussie boonie hat. I've finally worn out the old Panama Jack that I have been sporting for the past 3 years, and I thought it might be time to splurge on a newer lid for the melon.

So, I embarked on this quest to find me a new safari style hat, maybe in leather. I looked at a whole bunch of online retailers, but still didn't find anything that tripped my trigger.

A Google search of "leather safari hat" brought me to a...

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There's a solid strategy to compete in a very crowded market that sort of has it's roots in the "differentiate or die" era. However, product-centric differentiation is just that - all about the product, not the customer.

These days, the way to penetrate a crowded market is split the crowd. Narrow the scope and fire the rifle.

If I were to start a tennis shoe company marketing running shoes to people, I am probably not going to be...

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Let’s do a little imagination exercise. Let’s pretend you’re in the market for a new car. You go down to the auto dealership, and instead of going into the showroom to talk to a sales representative, you go into the dealership service department and just order every single part that goes into the model of car you want.

Is that how we buy automobiles? Seems a little absurd, huh?

A few days later, a big truck pulls up out in front of your house and drops off all these crates full of the parts you bought.

Now, is that big pile of parts on the ground a working automobile?

All the parts might be there in that pile, but they have to be assembled in a specific...

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What if you got all of your customers together in the same room so they could compare their experiences with each other. How many of them would share the same experience?

A Big Mac tastes the same in Paris, France, as it does in Paris, Texas, because McDonalds has a standard. It doesn’t matter who is at the counter or who is on the grill. Your experience as a customer should be the same. Customers want consistency, they want to know what they can expect.

If you can’t articulate your customer’s journey when buying from your company, then you may not understand what’s actually happening with your customer’s thinking processes. And consequently, your actions as a company may not be aligned with that journey. And to the previous point, that journey may not be consistent depending on who the customer deals with in your business because there isn't any standard.

For a very large percentage...

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Let’s take a much deeper look at the concept of "business process".

We tend to think of the idea of "process" as something negative or mundane. For example, the "legal process", where we deal with life issues like traffic citations, divorce, or even civil lawsuits. It's generally not viewed in a positive light. Or, we associate the term with some bureaucracy like government offices - the "building permit process", or the "tax audit process". At any rate, the word itself doesn't really represent concepts that we regard as positive or redeeming

However, I previously discussed the idea of business process being essential to the success and growth of any business. Michael Gerber has written extensively about the entrepreneur myth, where the technician that starts a business isn't necessarily good at the operation of a business. That person might be a ...

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A fundamental concept that I want to discuss is that of the success of a business being based on its systems and processes. The success and size of a business is directly proportionate to the efficiency and effectiveness of  its systems.

Let me give you an example of this.

Everyone knows McDonald’s is famous for it’s Big Mac.

But it’s also famous for it’s approach to business as a system. There wasn’t anything particularly special about McDonald’s, but the fact that it...

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Far too often, marketing people treat marketing like it exists in this magical, utopian fairyland vacuum, somehow or another separate from the rest of the business. It's like Uncle Daddy inbreeding. The more inbred it gets, the weaker the DNA.

But marketing goes so much deeper into the intrinsics of a successful business operation. I try to use an abstracted model that gets applied to each area based on a very simple formula. The core formula can then be applied to any tactical marketing area.

I dig even deeper by implementing marketing strategies within a CPI (continuous process improvement) model roughly approximated on proven TQM philosophies like those taught by Deming, Six Sigma, Lean (Toyota Production Systems), Balanced Scorecard, etc...

I am not sure why...

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Most small businesses got their start because the owner hit the street and pounded on doors. They had to do whatever it took to make sales happen because their very survival depended upon the success or failure of those efforts. A person can get pretty bold in the pursuit of their survival, and that’s the barbarian entrepreneur that drags the business into existence, kicking and screaming. But that's a very different...

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I've realized just how tough it has become for business, and particularly small business, to market and sell its products and services in nearly any niche.

Sure, the uncertain economy has really made it hard. Cash and credit are tight and people simply aren’t buying like before. But the problem started before uncertain economic conditions changed business. A lot of companies were finding that their marketing initiatives were already in serious trouble.

First of all, the internet has really become a serious tool for any customer in any market or niche. The availability of volumes of information with a single click in a search engine literally...

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