In the armed services, a military cadence or cadence call  is
a traditional call-and-response work song sung by
military personnel while running or marching.

In the United States, these cadences are sometimes called jody calls or jodies, after Jody, a recurring character
who figures in some traditional cadences. 

The cadence always brings the troops back to thinking about the “basics.”

Back to the basics is what Starbucks chief Howard Schultz, who returned to the company 2 years ago demanded!  “We have lost our way,” said Schultz.  “We had to go back to the start-up mode, hand-to-hand combat every day.”  Schultz closed stores and laid off  workers. 

His goal was to create an image in their people’s head and have them “to think like employees of a scrappy little company that just wants to serve a good cup of coffee.” 

This meant buying coffee beans in smaller batches and tailoring menus by region. 

It also meant re-designing stores to achieve a certain feeling of location. 
A “Local-ness” per say. 

Well while others are being “ground” through the recession, Starbucks apparently found its roots.  Starbucks, in the first quarter, net income went up by $64.3 million, revenue rose by four percent, as did same-store sales.

This was supposed to be a time when we were giving up the lattes along with other luxuries, but  . . .

How do we get back to the basics?

1.  Hand deliver the report – This gets you out and seen.  Visibility.
Take the Camera and get pictures with your Real Estate Agents. 
Post them to your Website or Face Book Fan Page.

2.  Communicate – Talk to the receptionist, the closing coordinator,
the associate.  Ask what can you do to help and have something for them. 

An article about the Real Estate business.  Maybe some SEO strategies or a list of site
where they can post and list their company.  Write a blog about the Realtor
and drop it off.    Success is just a “helping” away. . . davism

3.  Hand deliver your “New Price Sheet” – Stop in offices.  It is the first of
the year and they will be happy you did.  Re-activate your connections.  Make
it personal with a package.  Price sheet in a colored flat letter envelope. 
Personalize the price sheet with a sticky.   Include on stationary something
personal about your family in the package.  Your anniversary, your dogs or
children.

Boot Camp only lasted 6 weeks.  Let’s spend the next 6 weeks getting back
to being just a scrappy little company that just wants to perform a great home inspection.

Ten – hut!

Maverick Rules!

Dave Park
The Maverick Builder
Your Success is Our Success!

Let’s look at two ways to view our own words. One is to see them as a vehicle to describe the world around us; another is to use them to create something new in our lives. When the Declaration of Independence in America began, it was just words on paper, yet it changed the course of history. Notice the words “declaration of independence”–they are stating a commitment with actions aligned with it. When John F. Kennedy said, “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth,” that was also just words. When Martin Luther King made his “I have a dream” speech, that was also ‘just words’. Do you think in all of these instances they had it all worked out, their plans all together, feeling fully prepared with understanding of all the details of fulfillment that would spread out ahead of them? Of course not! But the world now knows just how powerfully these declarations of words with committed actions changed reality.

What if we spoke each day as though we, too, could change or influence reality? Would you choose your words in a different way? Would you use your words like a talented sculptor who lines up his chisel in just the right way to create something new and marvelous out of bare stones?

What gives our words more influence? Is just stating something enough? Maybe adding visual emphasis by putting up our affirmations on sticky notes all over the house? That may be a useful start, yet something more seems to need to be present.

In the three historic examples there was the power of real committed declaration followed by committed action. Perhaps you’ve had experiences where you stated words of declaration followed by true commitment of actions. How did others respond to your words? Have you ‘trained’ people to know you as someone whose words are aligned with your actions? What type of garden have you created for your words to land in? A fertile word garden is one where what you say and do align with each other.

Do you live as though your words have meaning, life, passion, making a difference– or do you use your words for collecting evidence of how life does not work for you?

As I am writing, I am critiquing myself. I can find places where I am giving power, commitment and action to my words and others where I am not.

When I was thinking of what questions to explore in the first-ever live recording of my men’s discussion group, The Men’s Inquiry, I chose to explore the power of our word. The starting question was: “What does it mean to be a man of your word?” The discussion revealed that where some men believed they ‘were their word,” they discovered that often they were not. For example when you say you will be at location X at time Y and you are not, do you realize you ‘broke your word’ and how that affects you and others? What does that say about how you value their time? What does that say about how you view the value of YOU being there? What does it mean to ‘be your word’ and why would you do it? To me it means what you say will happen, does happen!

I have found that word, commitment, and integrity are very important to be packaged together if you want to make things happen in the world. I have also found that aligning them gives more power to your word for yourself, others, and your environment. What builds trust the most is not so much how likeable you are, but what you do to align your words with your actions– and what you do when your words do not align with your actions. I have also discovered in working with my coaching clients that taking the ‘moral issue’ out of aligning your actions and words seems to help improve alignment of both. For example, if you just feel guilty and bad that you broke your word and do nothing else, you have increased the chance that you will do it again. On the other hand, if you move beyond the ‘judgment’ level of this and see that your words did not align with your actions, then what to do next is to clean up the break in your word with some new action.

I have also discovered that when we improve our integrity to ourselves, our word seems to have more impact to others. That is, when what you say to yourself you are going to do aligns with what you do, you gain more ability to affect your environment.

At the same time if you become too ‘careful’ with words, you won’t learn how to use them, experience their effect, or be able to study what works and what does not. It is like my Aikido instructor said: you will never be a master until you learn to love the mat. This means you will not make any great progress unless you give yourself room to make mistakes and learn from them. Some people are so careful with words, afraid to commit to an action, or using words so dispassionately that they become enslaved by their own process of carefully controlling themselves and their environment.

What does this have to do with business? It has everything to do with business. If your words don’t align with your actions, the foundation of your business will be on unstable ground. The higher the business builds without congruency of words and actions, the greater likelihood that the unstable foundation will cause problems to surface.

So in the process of exploring the effect of your own words, make sure to allow some passion and fun to come into the mix! Take it very seriously for a bit, then explore taking it lightly and learn from both approaches. How has aligning your words with your actions affected your life? I would enjoy hearing about it!

Here’s a great closing quote from Oprah Winfrey: “I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.”

Martin Brossman is a Success Coach, speaker, trainer and author. His new CD “What does it mean to be a man of your word” can be found on the Men’s Inquiry Web site at: www.toinquire.com Martin can be reached at Martin@CoachingSupport.com , (919) 847-4757, or www.CoachingSupport.com

In my previous article I talked about the importance of knowing your competition
because those of us who do the research and optimization can usually dominate
the ranks for their keywords.

Today, I will discuss how external linking strategies are still considered king by many experts these days.  I believe they are still very important in your overall SEO plan, even though the game has changed significantly. There are several things we will all agree with, first detailed SEO is a required activity, it can be very time consuming, but it can be done with a minimal budget. If you don’t have the time, but have a sizable budget then it is possible to be successful as well.

Older linking strategies consisted mainly of creating a massive amount of links, relevant or not, back to your website.  These older links were mainly “reciprocal” in nature, not the more valuable “one way” or “inbound” type of links.

The buzz these days is all about how to use Web 2.0 properties to drive traffic back to your website via inbound links.  What are the best methods for getting links to your site these days?  That seems to be a much discussed item out on the blogs these days.

Speaking of blogs, we now know that blogging for links is now quite a popular method for several reasons, thus making it a very viable alternative to a conservative linking strategy.

The first reason is, Google loves Blogs, so that is why we have seen an explosion in the number of blogs on sites such as blogger and wordpress.  Another reason is that you have control over the text and embedded links you add to the text. You can control the text in the anchor text and on your landing pages as well.

It seems that more Google juice (the mysterious quality that causes web pages to come up higher in a Google search) can be transferred from Blogs.

Press Releases can build inbound links and build traffic as well. The only cost effective marketing tool out there that is sure to build credibility is still publicity. Advertising is effective, but for some media, such as the web, it’s not nearly as effective as Public Relations. Advertising can control your message, PR on the other hand does not. Due to this result it can build credibility much faster. A well written press release can add to your inbound links by increasing your exposure to the masses.

Some of the more popular Press Release sites are; 1888PressRelease.com, AddPR.com, ECommWire.com, 24-7PressRelease.com and Free-Press-Release.com. Several of them are free to post, others can have a cost to upgrade and add additional features.

To join in on one of the latest but very useful trends you should have a Web 2.0 linking strategy in place as well.  Social Bookmarking is a method within the Web 2.0 world and  it can generate many backlinks.  If you are wondering what social bookmarking is and how you can use these social sites to build backlinks, there are thousands of social media sites out there where you can bookmark your favorite sites or links of interest.

Some of more popular sites are StumbleUpon, Digg, HubPages, Delicious, and Reddit. In order to submit your URL to these social bookmarking sites, you will need to register first with a free account. Once you login, you can submit your site under the right category. Many bookmarks mean that more people will find your site and more traffic and backlinks will come your way.

The bookmarking sites are usually public, meaning they get visited by quite a few people each day. So these bookmarks are not only giving you backlinks to your site, but also sending very valuable traffic to your site as well.

This method is considered a better alternative to posting a website on blogs, manual social bookmarking is a simple, convenient and hassle-free way of making sure that your site gets noticed and marketed to the right group as well.

All of these methods if done regularly and together as part of your overall SEO plan, will provide plenty of links and traffic over the long run.  This type of approach will also help you obtain that coveted first page ranking for your specific keywords.

For more information or questions regarding this article or our services, please email me at Brian@strategicseomarketing.com or visit us at www.strategicseomarketing.com

As spiritual beings connected to all living things via our intuition, we each are born in perfect harmony with universal energy or our creator. The limiting beliefs of others become our own before we reach the age of reason (about 6) as we have no ‘conscious mind’ to accept or reject data. The subconscious mind, however cannot reject, and only accepts information.

A family passes down their limiting beliefs by discussing those beliefs in the presence of a child repeatedly. A family that believes as example,* dancing is a no-no, they don’t dance, they discuss how the family never has danced, why they don’t dance, what’s wrong with those that do dance, etc., and talk about it repeatedly for years, the child now has that limiting belief! An unsolicited gift, if you will, from those who love us and are quite unaware of the less than optimum influence this data has on our life. If we believe there isn’t enough to go around, there will not be enough to go around.

Limiting beliefs create a barricade, blocking access to the perfect harmony we knew as toddlers and our intuition. We want to get back to feeling our intuition and move to shut down our limiting beliefs by creating new ones that will ultimately have us realize that we each have limitless potential!

Julia (2) is my 3rd granddaughter and she spent the night with me last week. She made herself abundantly clear about what she wanted to do and would have no other answer but YES, unless perhaps I offered a new agreement that satisfied her desire for whatever it was. She had no limiting beliefs as to what was possible for her. She would not move on to another task until this one was settled to her satisfaction. She had limitless potential and acted like she was 12 feet tall!

What would our lives be like if we could have beliefs that supported our infinite potential?
If we gave up HOW we are going to do it and only considered WHY we WANT it?

Julia wanted it because JULIA WANTED IT and no other reason. You will be happy to know that it is not a difficult process to create new beliefs that supersede the old limiting ones. That is what my work is all about.

If time and money were not an issue, what would you want?
Forget about how you would get it or that it is something you need.

What do you really want? Do you know that you may have anything you want as long as you do not violate the rights of others? Now there’s a belief system for you!

Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds. … Einstein

Leslie Flowers, CS, LSC
Certified Speaker / LifeSuccess Consultant
919-271-4948
www.LifeSuccessLeslie.com

For this article I will concentrate on keywords  specifically, so let’s take a look at them closer and see what we can do to stay ranked on that coveted first page.  As a note, when I say ranked I mean naturally, organically or on the left side of the search engine results pages (serp), not on the right side or top where the pay per click (paid) ad’s appear.

Keywords or should I say “Long Tail Keywords” (three words or more) are much easier to get a first page ranking for now because of the ever increasing amounts of competition.  What I mean is competing number of pages for your particular long tail keyword.  Sure, you will probably get less hits or overall impressions, but if it is a “buying” long tail keyword, then that can avoid the shoppers or tire kickers as I call them.

An example in the insurance world would be “health insurance” vs.  “family co pay health insurance in Washington DC”.  A person searching for the long tail like this example has probably narrowed down their search to a particular type of health policy and is ready to buy, rather than someone who is still performing research about the subject.

So where can we use these “Long Tail Keywords” in our overall optimization strategy? There are two main areas of optimization, on page and off page. I will cover some of both as they relate to keywords in general. The first area to look at would be on page optimization, such as title tags, meta description and meta keyword tags.

A title tag should be brief but descriptive enough for your site visitors to identify you and your business. The title tag is the first thing that is shown and indexed by the search engines. The meta description tag influences the possibility that a person will actually click on the search engine results page and visit your site. Its intent is to be a brief but concise summary of your page’s overall content.

Meta keyword tags  are a summary list of the most important words on your page.  They are still considered very important, but the search engines have de-emphasized their overall value over time because of over usage.  There are other things to consider, but a good overall strategy would be to include your Long Tail Keywords in all three tags. 

The other area to concentrate on would be off page optimization strategies such as video and article marketing.  With several new articles in place on your site and fresh content regularly scheduled, this can ensure you with a much faster return to the top of the search engine rankings for your keywords.

There are many article hosts available, but four or five main sites should be enough to obtain good rankings.  Some of the best sites include EzineArticles, GoArticles, ArticleBase, WebProNews and ArticleDashBoard. 

Video marketing these days can come in two distinct flavors, posted video and hosted video. Posted video is when you create and optimize video content that is uploaded to video sharing websites like Youtube.  Hosted video is either hosted on a private network or hosted on your own site (server).

The benefit of posted video would be that you can leverage the higher page rank and authority that these sites have in order to assist you in ranking well within the search engines. The downside is that this strategy does not help with driving traffic back to your own website. Hosted video is a good strategy when your goal is to drive users to your own website but must be optimized correctly.

With generous usage of your long tail keywords in your articles and on video links will catapult your site back towards the top again.

These are just some of the areas that you should concentrate on if you have found your site sinking back to the second page and beyond.

In the next article, I will go into detail about current Linking strategies and how that ties in with long tail keywords as well.

For more information or questions regarding this article or our services, please email me at Brian@strategicseomarketing.com or visit us at www.strategicseomarketing.com

“Imitation Sugar is Sweet . . . Too!”

Imitation isn’t only the sincerest form of flattery; it’s also a power way to learn new business skills.

Mark Twain learned how to write by imitating other writers.  As a youth he set newspaper stories in type for the newspaper.  Tedious work, but it gave him the chance to imitate writers.  He learned the fundamentals of great writing by copying.

 
I hear the skepticism, “Mark Twain was a great author.”

 
Well you’re a great inspector. 
A professional inspector. 
And you drive a lot.

 
Have you ever walked down a street you normally drive?

Did you notice that you saw, heard and learned a lot more about the street when you were on foot? 
When you slow down, you pay attention to all the wonderful things you normally miss.  

 
The same thing happens when you imitate the great marketers, networkers and sales people.  You
suddenly become aware of what you normally never hear or see.

 
Imitation is POWRful.
 
Athletes watch film of great players.  They are training their minds (and bodies) to record patterns
of creating success. Businesses copy other successful business models.

It isn’t stealing, it’s learning.

If you want to know how to become a better networker, then imitate the people who are already doing it.  Just ask. 
Then will be glad to help.  You will set them as an expert.  It is a great stroke for them. 
A great education for you.

 
When you copy their form, their networking, their style, you will begin to recognize how and why they
get the results they have achieved.

 
Just ask a successful salesperson or training guru.  A networker or media expert.  Find someone to follow
in social media.  Guy Kawasaki or Seth Godin.  Read their blogs.  Then handwrite their blogs.  

 
Sound too simple for you? 

Then keep this in mind.

 
Learning is eternal.  Set aside 10 minutes a day.  The POWR of imitation can transform your entire
ability to move your business. . .  Double your Business!

 
You will be amazed what you will learn!

Plain and Simple!

MAVERICK RULES!

Your Success is Our Success!

P.S.  I want to share with you the THREE SECRETS STEPS of imitation:

1.  Step One:  Set a Goal.
2.  Step Two:  Be Aware of the Moment.
3.  Step Three:  Trust what Happens.

Set at Goal by deciding on what skill you

need to approve on for your business. 

(Networking)

Be Aware of the Moment.  Focus on the

Point.  Focus on the imitation moment.

You point of power is now.

(Keep quite the inner chatterbox)

Trust what Happens.  Everything in life

is or can be a learning experience.  Give

yourself the opportunity to learn, grow,

expand and enrich your skills.

(Take what you have learned and let if flow)

Copywrite 2010, The Maverick Builder
All rights reserved!

The difference between these two words is MARKETING! 

Plain and simple.

That’s how we are going to mentally approach our planning calendar. 

Some months will be “Come Here” months with promotions, advertising, marketing and follow-up designed to bring your clients, prospects and business to you. 

Other months will be “Sic’em” months designed for your business to be clearly aggressive without the lingering effects from the bite!

During the year there will be several marketing campaigns delivered to the local and national press, real estate professionals, vendors, affiliates, clients, homeowners and recruits. 

Yes we use the word campaign because business is a war.

It will be imperative that you not only follow the campaigns, but that you maintain prepared communication with your social and professional networks.  This business building opportunity and platform will propel your business.

But the speed is dependent on relationships.  
(Social and Professional)

POWRsoft will distribute, inject, project and blast reaction designed marketing campaigns and specifically targeted materials to your people. . . . YES you have people!

You will have to know the material, follow up and answer the phone.

  
NOW, this is the MOST IMPORTANT PART of this Maverick Rant!

 . . . now ask yourself why I have your attention.  What grabbed you? 
What made you want to keep reading? 
Why are you reading now?

Let Maverick take a guess:

It was a simple, but solid statement.  The line stood out by presenting it on the page by itself (white space) and I gave the line a greater impact by capitalizing some of the words.

Marketing uses every line to keep your readers attention.  Marketing tells a story and one that the reader is bound to follow not just this one time but every time.

There are simply too many distractions in the world for you to offer mediocre marketing.  You don’t have a choice.  Your marketing materials must be perfection. 

Your marketing must Walk, Talk and Breathe!

It’s an exhilarating challenge to actually influence people.  People will use and buy your services and products on the strength of your marketing. Then when they experience your untouchable product and service. . .

BLAM . . . POW . . . Holy Cow Batman. 

Competing on Service instead of price is challenging in today’s economic environment.  But Maverick believes it is the right thing to do!  And so will your clients.

Plain and Simple!

This is not your mothers marketing. 

This is ELECTRIFYING!
This is COMPELLING!
This is MAGNETIC!
This is STIRRING!
This is VITAL!
This is HYPNOTIC!
This is POWERFUL!
This is PERSUASIVE!
This is GUARANTEED!

This is MAVERICK MARKETING! 

And Maverick is planning to facilitate a double in your business in 2010. 

It’s not magic. 
It’s just MARKETING. 
 
Plain and Simple! 

Maverick Rules!

Dave Park
The Maverick Builder
Your Success is Our Success!

Fat Bottom Girls you make the rocking world

In Reveries today Tim Manners reported:

M.I.T. researchers have re-invented a bicycle wheel “that captures kinetic energy

released when a rider brakes and saves it for when the rider needs a boost,” reports

Sindya N. Bhanoo in the New York Times (12/15/09). The Copenhagen Wheel, consists

of “a sleek red hub” that “can be retrofitted to any bike’s rear wheel.”

It employs “the same technology used by hybrid cars … to harvest otherwise wasted energy when a cyclist brakes or speeds

down a hill.  With that energy, it charges up a battery inside the wheel’s hub.”  The device “includes sensors that track air quality,

a meter that logs miles and a GPS unit to track routes.   All that data can be sent via Bluetooth to a rider’s smart

phone and shared with others.”

It all sounds very cool, but I think it misses the mark.

The basic bike is so hard to beat.

The latest thing now are the simple, fixed-gear bikes, so simple and light you can throw them over your shoulder.

Does anyone remember Schwinn? 

Banana Seat, Monkey Handle Bars and

playing cards in the spokes . . .

. . . Now can you take today’s economic bike truth and pedal your way through your business pricing model?

Let’s look at your price structure:

First is your pricing listed and available?

Is your pricing model simple?

Do your offer add-on values or just “pile-ons?”

Do you have a different charge for age, foundation type, location?

Does your client need a calculator to multiply the charge per sq foot?

Do they need a Abacus when looking over your invoice?

People “Simply” want the best.

And where price is concerned

“Simple” is Simply Better!                  

Maverick Rules!

Your Success is Our Success!

P.S.  If you did not grow up a Queen fan, you simply missed some of

the best music the 70’s and the 80’s had to offer and my apologies to

all the “small bottom girls.”

Mr. Potato Head, one of the world’s most adored “personalities,” was “born” in 1952, at the Pawtucket, RI – based toy company,

Hasbro, Inc., and began making history at an early age as the very first toy to be advertised on television.

 The original Mr. Potato Head contained only parts, such as eyes, ears, noses and

mouths, and parents had to supply children with real potatoes for face-changing fun!

 Yes, the Mr. Potato Head toy helped Starbucks employees understand exactly how

inefficient they are at their jobs.  The toy’s parts are sprinkled “across several tables”

and baristas are timed by stopwatch to see how long it takes them to put Mr. Potato

 head together.

 The first time Tara Jordan tried this, it took her about a minute. But she got her time

down to just 16 seconds after “moving items closer together” and “altering the order of assembly.” This exercise is part

of Starbucks’s drive to reduce its store labor costs, which total “about $2.5 billion, or 24 percent of revenue, annually.”

Now what can we take from Mr. Potato Head. 

Efficiency creates effectiveness — freeing up more time “to interact with clients and improve your business experience.” 

This can be especially tricky because “every inspection business is configured differently and has its own

client-realtor-management patterns.” 

The Mr. Potato Head game should encourage each franchise and inspector “to come up with their own efficiency solutions.”

When was the last time you wrote down all your business pieces?
Do you just plug in solutions or do your create a flow chart?
Which pieces are most important? 

Don’t be a Spud Dud!

Grow your business by providing an Experience.

Explode your business by creating Efficiency.

Mr. Potato Head … a world-class personality whose recognition grew from a simple children’s toy to everyone’s best friend,

a speaker of causes, entertainment star and a cultural icon.

Sounds like a Maverick!