Carefree Communications

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Recently my company Franklin Spirko Media which offers Internet Marketing services exhibited at the Fort Worth Entrepreneur Expo. Overall we had a great show and got a lot of great leads and met a bunch of really cool people. Mostly people looking to build a business or people already doing it. There is something special and magical about thousands of entrepreneurs getting together. There is excitement, enthusiasm and optimism at a level that only people who are willing to take risks and work hard to turn ideas into reality.

Of course at any trade show there are always people you can only call parasites. They wander the isles pitching their wares to people who all PAID a fee and took the time to set up booths. Now when people visit our booth I do want to hear what they do and what their company is about but I don’t want them selling to me especially in a way that makes it clear they have absolutely no real interest in what our company does. At this latest trade show there were three “professions” that had plenty of representatives that really wore out their welcome. They were….

“Business Coaches” - This has become a generic over used term that covers a variety of positions that are simply “business consulting” in various packages. I know quite a few people that do this that are pretty damn good but I also have been “pitched” to by perhaps over 100 so called “coaches” that I would not want advice on how to find the highway from let alone running my business! At this show I piled up a total of 5 Business Coach Business cards that went directly into our booth trash can. Typical approach - Coach - “What does your company do?” Us - “Well we provide Internet Marketing services that help companies get leads and business online, we try…(cut off in mid sentence). Coach - “That sounds like a great business what I do is bla bla bla bla”

They practically verbally puke all over you with crap clichés like - “Everyone needs a coach”, “Even Michael Jordan needed a coach”, “Most people know what to do they just need someone to help keep them doing it”. Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut the hell up! First Mike’s coach KNEW HOW to play basketball, every does not NEED a coach and for God sakes if you need to be accountable get a job and let a boss keep you accountable because you are not cut out to run a business.

To all business coaches let me say paying a fee to buy a franchise and have two weeks of training does not qualify you to tell me how to run my company. It certainly is not a license to harass vendors that have paid for booth space at a trade show.

Network Marketers - Oh for the love of god please stop telling me about your “next trillion” or what ever other nonsense you are spouting. I don’t want to come to your meetings, I don’t want to bother my family about your crappy vitamins and I sure don’t want some guy that can’t even scrape up the money to have a booth at the show as my “mentor”. - There were also quite a few Network Marketing people there who did have booths, they did not wonder around bothering others, to those folks good luck building your pyramids full of dream big clones but do try to encourage your MLM brethren to have a bit more sense.

Bandwidth Sales People - By bandwidth I am talking about people that sell “data” and “voice” services like T1s or perhaps Business DSL. I also added to my trash can a nice stack of cards from these people that seemed to be at this show in unusual force! What a bunch of jerks these guys were and as soon as they saw “President” on my card they were on point like a dog on a whole covey of quail.

Not even the fake interest that “business coaches” pretended to have. Strait to “so how man phones are at your office” and “who provides your bandwidth” followed by “we should meet to see how we can help each other”. Again I wanted to shot SHUT UP!, just shut the hell up.

Now, exactly how do you propose we “help each other” there bud. You didn’t even bother to read the name of my company on my shirt before you started burning verbal calories, you have no idea what the heck it is that we do and you source of leads is apparently bothering people who are currently trying to promote their own companies. Additionally please bandwidth is a commodity today I can shop vendors up to DS3 and higher online and get pricing and proposals in no time and never deal with someone shoving a business card in my face.

To be fair I have to say I have done probably well over 200 different trade shows in my career and all of them have “parasites” and they are not always the three I mentioned above. I have had my fill of other professions at shows most are “agents”, “advisers” or “consultants” of various forms.

What I would like to hear from readers is what shows have you participated in and what were the various parasites that harassed you at them?

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I was messing around with one of my sites that sells telecom services and makes money with Google’s adSense and happened to see the new Google Scrolling adSense in action.  So I did a quick Camtasia Video that you can watch and hear one of my predictions for what is comming next.  This is an interesting new function from adSense, what remains to be seen is how users will react to it.

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You see that picture on the right, that picture is me. In fact that is an older picture from earlier this year before I went up to my current 262 pounds I am about 255 in that picture.  Unfortunately I carry weight really well and that has led be to be to comfortable and get way to fat!

So with January 1, 2008 I am cutting back and loosing some weight.  Neil Franklin has been foolish enough to place a bet with me on this.  If on May 31st 2008 I weigh 210 or less he will be paying me 200 dollars and if I weight 211 or more I am on the hook to pay him.

I will post my new weight on the first of each month and my monthly and total weight loss.  I will post an updated picture on March 1st and then one at the end.  Neil is scewed, his money is mine.  Yet win or loose by shedding close  to or more then 52 pound this year, I will be the real winner.  Most people think weight loss is hard all I will be doing is eating less in January, let’s see how that works out.

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OK, well you better not and I won’t either. I like living in my nice warm home, with all my gadgets and gizmos and would prefer not to live in a tent and give away half my money. So I will be giving Dorothy a new stereo system complete with satellite radio for her truck this Christmas not pennies. Shhhhh- don’t tell her and she never reads my blog.

Yet those pennies may be worth a lot more money then you might think. Try about 2 cents piece if they are older then 1982 and if they were melted into a copper lump. For more information read this post on Investing in Copper Pennies from the Building Wealth Blog.

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OK I must bow before one of the master bloggers of our time, Jeremy Shoemaker and his post entitled “Things Internet Marketers can learn from Pick Up Artist“.  It is just awesome I recommend you read and join in the conversation about it.

The key traits he points out are,

• Listen and Learn
• Approach Moving Targets
• Be Confident
• Make Your Visitor Feel Safe
• Be Interesting

This is one of the best posts this year in my opinion.   Excellent use of video as well in my opinion.

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I have been reading a new blog about building wealth by a guy that calls himself cost cutter and he did a post today called “Your Job is Not Secure” and I really liked it a lot. He brings up many good points and as I believe that a recession will be hitting us pretty hard in mid to late 2008 the time to start thinking about these things is now.

He gives ten “tips” to stay ahead when the chips are down, my favorite one was his first one,

“Never see yourself as secure in your job, have a plan B. Always know which competitor or similar company would be best for you to go work for. Cultivate relationships within said company, don’t act like you are ready to switch if you are not but be on the radar”.

Good words to live by in my opinion. If you get a chance give his blog and this post a read I have a feeling you will find it interesting.

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