Monthly Archives: March 2012

Commentary

Eye On Integrity

Keeping An Eye On Integrity

Integrity: being complete; undivided; focused; true; unimpaired.

Whatever the synonym, integrity is at the center of SMILE. It is at the center of everything done at 5 Point Management. It is at the center to keep us balanced. It is the center of who we are.

Too many people use Integrity as a buzzword. It gets banded about as if it were a shuttlecock in a badminton game on a well groomed lawn. Overused, overstated and under performing. That is how integrity gets pushed today.

Integrity is too key to allow such trivialities. One has to have integrity to last, to be seen as honest and to be a lasting leader. Politicians claim to have it, then display they do not. Scoundrels posing as businessmen claim it, then use practices that are immoral.

Integrity is not something faked. It must be a part of who one is. Must be in the heart. Must be in the mind. It must be the center of everything.

In the word SMILE, the letter I balances the other four. It gives symmetry to the folding point. It is the center. Integrity was chosen for the I in SMILE to remind us, to balance us, to focus us. Integrity is who we are. We are it.

Commentary

Legacy Mastermind Leftovers

What a incredible weekend it has been. Blogging while Justin Woolf was reviewing keyword search and the importance of being precise and drilling into a niche. Advertisement reviews with Sophia Rashkin. Getting videos critiqued by Benny Bells and Kevin Levonas. Being in the Loyal 9 Revolution headquarters. Being with other marketers. Hearing their trials. Learning from their mistakes.

No words can accurately described what the weekend brought. Clarity and peace. Willingness and direction. Longing and anticipation. Such pale terms.

Being with the Loyal 9 and Team Rashkin for a few hours is a privilege. Being with them for a whole weekend? Awesome. Having them training and reviewing your work directly? Priceless. That was this weekend.

Meaningless

All the superlatives in the word are without meaning if no action gets taken afterward. If nothing comes of this weekend, it was only a good time in New Jersey. Action must be taken. Action will be taken.

Now the action has direction. Now the skills to correct, aim again and go are learned. Now the understanding of good marketing has been absorbed. Now is the time. Now is the day. All will be seized. It is all mine.

Your road to the Legacy Mastermind event starts by applying to start your profitable business.

Commentary

Your Keywords Building Your Legacy

Day two of the Legacy Mastermind event is underway at the Loyal 9 Revolution world headquarters. Justin Woolf is discussing keywords and how to use them. Yeah, it’s exciting.

Keywords are an interesting animal. Many people how start an on-line business tend to use phrases like “make money online” or “the best online business” or “reviews of online businesses” or “the best ways to make money in 2012” and so on. All of them suck.

Why? Why don’t they work?

They are too general. They pull in too large an audience. They are targeted at the curious audience, not they buying one. They will bring in too many people. Too many of the wrong people. Your marketing should pull in people who know what they want. People who are looking for what you are selling, not just being curious that you have to convert into a buyer.

Get into a niche.

Who do you want to attract? What do these people look like? What do they do? What do they seek? For whom might they search?

When a person is really serious about making the lifestyle change required to be successful in a business, online or otherwise, they tend to be looking for specific information. They may do a search looking for a review about Robert Kyosaki and the Rich Dad/Poor Dad products. Another possibility is finding a video about a Dani Johnson event or interviews with people who have attended one. Maybe they are into real estate and looking to understand what Russ Dalbey offers with buying and selling property notes. You need to know how they are thinking.

What is the buyer’s story? What is there background? What is their pain? How is your offer, your product, their solution? They need to know you want to help them, not make a sale. Give what they want, what they need, then you will be able to have what you want. Their pain comes first. Solve it.

Legacy is more than just a two day training course. Mere training can be had by other ways. Legacy is about community. It is about entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs. It is about changing lifestyles and direction. It is about making connections that will last a lifetime. Legacy is about you.

Business, Marketing

Legacy Is Rocking

Are you at Legacy? No? Why?

Legacy is the third session in a three part series of training events. The series is named AFL for Action, Freedom and Legacy. It is the place where all the parts come together. It is where the picture becomes complete.

Legacy is a mastermind for Pro U members lead by the Loyal 9 and Team Rashkin held in the Loyal 9 headquarters in Hasbrouck, New Jersey. It is not for the timid. It is for the serious.

Pro U is about community. It is about every member helping every other. It is more than a business opportunity. It is entry into a training and mentoring culture. Do the work and it will lead to more.

It will lead to more opportunity elsewhere. It will lead to creating your own voice, your own business. It will create a new journey for you. It will make the future you want possible.

The opportunity is not a consumable. The product is not a one use and dispose. It is a new way of thinking about yourself. It is a way for you to get the training and direction you need to have your own business. Not one selling Pro U to others. One selling your services to other businesses. You will become a marketer, dedicated to helping others. You will become a leader.

Legacy is rocking. Are you here?

Business

Why You Need A Mentor

A Mentor??

Very few are lucky enough to have been born with all the knowledge, know-how and experience to do whatever they want to the fullest of any human ability. The rest of us need someone to train us. Someone to guide us. Someone to give advice based on experience and testing. Someone to mentor us.

A mentor is more than just a teacher or instructor. A mentor is a trusted guide. A mentor taught Odysseus’ son Telemachus. A mentor is someone close to you. Someone whose advise and teaching you long for. Someone who can be bold and blunt, without it being taken personal. Someone who can correct your quickly and applaud you thoroughly. A congratulations from a mentor is meaningful; deep.

Mentoring is about building trust. The mentor must be trusted by the student. The student must be trusted by the mentor. The mentor must trust that a student will do as they instruct. No whining. No backtalk. Just do it. A student must trust that a mentor will not put them in harms way or beyond their abilities. Otherwise, the student will likely question every instructions. The mentor’s word is absolute and final. The student’s results are beneficial and enlightening.

At 5 Point Management, the M in SMILE stands the Mentoring. We believe that everyone needs a mentor. We believe that everyone needs someone to mentor. By having a mentor, one grows in knowledge. By being a mentor, one grows in understanding. To desire a subject is to learn it. To know a subject is to teach it.

Marketing

SMILE with Sincerity

The motto for 5 Point Management is SMILE. This is an acronym that reminds us everyday why we are here and what we are about. SMILE starts with Sincerity.

When you are dealing with people, whether for a business transaction or meeting for the first time, it is very important that they believe you are sincere. When you are not, they will wonder what you want from them, what you want to sell them or if they are being scammed. Sincerity goes a very long way to convey to them you truly care for them as a person.

Sincerity is more than a warm smile or a good handshake. Sincerity must come from within. It must come from deep. It must be a part of who you are. It cannot be faked. Doing so will come across as empty, shallow, manipulative, condescending. It turns people off and they will most likely stop listening, no matter what you are saying.

Make sincerity a part of your being. Breath it. Learn it. Live it.

Business

The Stars Have Come Out

This blog has been around for nearly a year. Some things have changed, while others have not. Today marks the time for a significant change. Not so much to the blog itself, but to the efforts going on around it.

As I’ve been able to help other people and as they have begun to grow, it came time for me to put my foot forward more than it had been. It became time to more loudly announce to the world that changing the lives of others for the better is serious business. As such, it became time to solidify that business.

Today I am announcing the creation of 5 Point Management, LLC. The effort to creation this business took about 3 months. It was quite the arduous task, well worth it though.

The key for 5 Point is SMILE. It is what guides us daily. It is who we are, what we do and why we do it. It is our very center. Up coming posts will explain SMILE and why you should face everyday with it.

Internet Marketing

Search Engine Optimization – It Moves

The beginning

Search Engine Optimization. What is it? Does it work? How can it be used? Where is it? Why does it keep changing? Is SEO a verb or noun? What about? What about? What about???

In the early days of the web, search engine optimization was nearly unheard of. Websites were grouped by audience or subject. Business sites over here. Research sites over there. Government sites on the shelf below. Yahoo felt more like a library or a book store than a search engine. Ideas for indexing content was in its infancy and WAIS databases were king. The most used protocol was Z39.50, not e-mail, ftp, telnet, gopher or web. Times were about to change.

The Middle

Along came Alta Vista and the proverbial genie was out of the bottle. Now someone did not have to look through a endless sea of categories for a website, but could now enter words and phrases. Ask Jeeves allow the user to take the next step and ask in a question form: “What is the color blue?”, “Why is the sky blue?”, “How is beer made?”. The web and Internet were becoming synonyms, even though the Internet is more than the web. People were getting dial up accounts in large numbers. The web was growing exponentially. Thousands of sites were being added each day. How could a business be heard in all that noise?

By studying the algorithms of the search engines, content started to be created that took advantage of it. Pages did not necessarily have to be human readable. All it had to be was consumed by the spiders and seen as optimized by the search engine. When a page is optimized for say “the best home business” or “make money now stuffing envelopes”, it gets pushed to the top of the page. A business’ voice is heard the best and loudest. They get more traffic, others get less.

As pages become flooded with keywords to create better search engine optimization, the spammers took over. Site after site of pure gibberish was created. The charlatans started to win. The snake oil salesmen gave everyone a bad name. Something had to give. It did.

Panda Me

The largest search engine, Google, changed their algorithm. Panda went live and search engine optimization changed overnight. Content became king again. Real content. Not machine gibberish. Articles started to become relevant again. Blogs mattered. The sun came out.

Google continues to change their algorithm. Search engine optimization has become both an Art and a Science. Good content, good social awareness and backlinking all play their part in making sites rank higher. Sure, the spammers will now hire armies of writers to earn their top spots again, however, their efforts and expenses will greatly increase. In the meantime, actual individuals will be able to have their voices heard.

Learn to move with search engine optimization or get left behind. Know what the changes mean. Create your content to adhere to the new standards. Be heard. Be seen.

Bryon Lape can also be read on HubPages. A longer form article entitled SEO: the moving target can be found there. Read. Comment. Share. Together we grow.

Commentary

Landing that Job

The resume dance

In many areas of work, there are jobs to be had. There are jobs advertised. There are openings. For each opening, there are many, many resumes. They are all grouped together. They get piled. They all get reviewed. Why do some result in a call while others get ignored?

What is it about one resume that gets attention over another? Is it the experience listed? The education of the person? Surely it is the typeface and the margins. The paper quality?

It is none of those.

Tell your story

Your resume is not just words on a page. Your resume is your avatar. It is presenting you before a potential boss. If it is just a string on skills and experience and nothing more, it will get the attention of no one. That style of resume will get ignored, no matter the typeface or the fancy paper upon which it is printed. This will be made worse when it is either submitted electronically where it may be converted to standard characters.

Your resume needs to tell your story. The reader should be able to get an idea of who you are, where you have been and why you have gone on that journey. The reader must feel they know who you are after reading it and why you will be able to help them. Don’t let them guess.

It is not, however, a creative writing exercise. It needs to tell a story, but not in a narrative form. Have your skills forward, your experience next and your education. Treat the submission of your resume not as a push to an anonymous person. Treat it as it is, a press release of yourself to your new boss. Don’t click and shoot. Be personal.