We've been busy over here launching websites for our clients. Not all of these sites are 100% done, but at least they are up and running for their customers to find them.

Bank Of Commerce Mortgage
One of our biggest clients. We support & maintain their entire technology infrastructure. A special thanks to John Leonard for designing and driving this site!

Develop Your Brand
If you are starting a company, then you are developing a Brand. This company can really get it done. They have an awesome marketing resource about what colors mean.

Madison | Grey Street
This is already our second project with Peter Vorris, and we're already working on the third. See their Press Release here.

I had a friend email me the video clip below this morning. I give a similiar message about business cards. Like anyone who becomes an expert, he's a little over zealous.



For those of you that dont know, my cards are about $1 each, and took a LONG time to get right. I love our cards and I owe a special thanks to CopyRite.

A great way to add content to your own website is to use Google's new feature (just announced today): Google News for webmasters.

I'll be playing with this a little to see how I like it, but I encourage anyone with a website to keep trying to add/update content to see what works.

One of my biggest pet peeves in business is when communication is made without my permission. Now, first off, Permission Marketing is a concept that has been widely developed and evangelized by Seth Godin. It basically states that your most effective communication in business happens after your customer (or potential customer) has given you permission to market to them.

One example of this is when a user signs up for a newsletter. They have given that company permission to send them material.

Now, I do a LOT of business online. I email companies about products, prices, service terms, etc. I love to handle it over the web. It allows me to communicate when its most convenient for me, and in turn, they can respond when its most convenient for them. (Its a win-win)

Here's my pet peeve: When I go onto a website and submit a form asking for them to contact me, and they CALL me back! (Especially if I selected the "Email" option from their dropdown asking what is the best method to contact me) If I really wanted to TALK to someone, wouldn't I just call their toll free number? The same thing can happen when I email a vendor asking a question, and they call me right away.

People think that any contact is permission, but its not. I now have to make sure I put in a fake phone number if I want to make sure to not get called.

Are you responding with Permission?


Check out Seth's book, I highly recommend his material:

Recently I found myself trying to sign up for a gym membership. I thought this would be fairly simple and straight forward: Membership Fee & a per month fee. Simple enough, right?

Well, what I found was this:

• Down payment JUST to join a 14-month waiting list.


• Fairly high membership fee


• Per month after that.


• Deposit to use the "Sister club" while on the waiting list


• Per month fee to use the sister club.

This went on for over 20 emails and a couple phone calls, over 5 days. There were built-in loopholes to get around the waiting list, and high membership fee, but none of them seemed to apply to me. (This was just as confusing as the I.R.S. tax code!)

All which led me to call an entirely different club, who had the pricing structure that I expected. One quick phone call, a 10 minute visit to sign papers, and I was done.

No catches, no hidden fees, no complicated pricing. In fact they gave me 2 months free!

A complicated price structure is a turn off. It leaves the customer confused and feeling like there are hidden fees for everything.

Many people have asked me lately why I don't have an "auto-signature" on my email. They mostly ask me after I email them and then they have to email me back just to get my phone number. Well, I don't have one on purpose, and here are my reasons:

• There's not enough time in the day to TALK to all my customers. I wish there was, but there isn't. So I must encourage my customers to email me. I can have 10 customers email me all at the same time, and we can communicate accordingly, but I cannot be on the phone with 10 people at the same time. (The same principle applies for my business address)


• People really don't need to be reminded what the name of my company is, or my title. If they want to know my company, they will see it in my email address. If they want to know my title, then they can ask. (Why would anyone want to know my title? So they can see how much of a nerd I really am?)


• TagLines really don't make things better. Some company's sign off all emails with "Respectfully", "Fanatically Yours", or "Your ___ Specialists, for life!". People stop reading it after the first time, not to mention how annoying it is to see "Fanatically Yours" after you've just sent an emailing complaining about their poor service.


• People stop paying attention to it after the first couple of times.

The last point is the most important. People stop noticing it. Its lost meaning. So why are you doing it?