Grow your business in the new frontier.

There is an economic theory that says this:

Our capitalist system relies on the ability to continue to expand. We no longer can expand without wars or unethical trade agreements with underprivileged societies. Therefore, we will fail.

Those who subscribe to this theory point out that we on planet earth live in a “closed system”, meaning that there are only so many resources, and that as our population grows, this necessitates that more and more people will have less and less.

This economic is close enough to true to be appealing. We do, indeed, live on a planet with limited resources. As a nation, we can no longer expand our borders across the continent - we ran out of continent a while back.

As children, we heard about the “boom times” when men with adventurous spirits were told, “Go West, young man!” Those with fortitude and brains could make a fortune, either panning for gold or by farming cheap land. However, these opportunities are done, right? Prices for limited resources will now spiral upwards until no one can afford necessities, and global warming will kill us all.

Like I said, this theory is appealing. It has some truth to it - but not the whole truth. I came to this conclusion after reading an article by Father James Schall in which he made an excellent point. He said, “Our society suffers, not from a lack of resources, but from a lack of ideas.”

After reading this, I realized that if our human potential were fully realized, we would solve the problem of resources. We would discover or create new energy sources and eradicate our polluting and ultimately doomed reliance on fossil fuels.

We are now entering a new frontier - in has limitless space in all directions - and by exploring it, we will save mankind’s future. Those of us who apply fortitude and intelligence to solving the problems of this new frontier will make a fortune - in the same way as did the participants of the gold rush - without the risk of being shot or crushed by mining accidents.

We are now entering the frontier that has been created by near-zero cost electronic storage and ubiquitous computer and internet access - the frontier of the information age. Moving forward, those of us who can create valuable information and create easy ways to find this information will form new empires - Google, Facebook, Amazon... yet, the most amazing thing about this new frontier is that it has no physical limits at all. It has the potential for infinite expansion - and the potential to accommodate the needs of everyone.

Why do I say this? Because as we create newer, more efficient ideas on the idea plane, the available resources on the physical plane will be used and conserved in ways that will ensure there are enough physical resources for everyone. Utopian? No. Look at the ideas that have created better standards of living for the entire human race - ideas such as the printing press and the weaving loom issued in entirely new standards of living for a tremendous number of people... yet even these do not compare to the potential of a society in which the production is measured in terms of valuable ideas.

I am looking forward to the next 25 years. As our society grows to reward those with ideas more and more, I believe that our natural abilities and potentials will shine light on many of the problems that we as a race now confront.

SEO Snake Oil

“Psst. Hey, kid.  Wanna be at the top of the Google rankings?  Gimme $1000.  I'll get ya there.”

The Snake Oil SEO “gurus” who sell this type of product intentionally keep one thing from their would-be customers...

If your website is at the top of the Google search pages, but doesn't provide useful information to your potential customers, it is useless.  If your potential clients click on your site and don't get immediately drawn in by your knowledge about your products and the problems they solve, they'll hit the “back” button quicker than you can say “SEO is dead.” 

Your website is a reflection of your business.  Is your front desk littered with random comments and advertisements, or does it have a theme?  Do you provide valuable information and service to people once they arrive in your door, or do you continue to shout at them until they purchase something or walk out?

According to Bob Burg, author of “Go-Giver,” All things being equal, people will do business with those that they know, like and trust. Your website represents an opportunity to create a base of fans that listen to what you say and who grow to know who you are.  This then leads to business down the road.  No SEO service will create this – only valuable, well-written content that provides service and knowledge to your visitors does this.  This type of information is not created by people who specialize in “tricking” Google, but by people who have the time and inclination to learn your business, its needs, the needs of your potential customers and who can write excellent copy.

Renew your brilliance

Just the other day, I was driving my daughter home from school when she saw a strange box by the side of a road on a pole. The box had something inside and a blue handset on the outside.

“Dad, what's that?”
“That is a pay phone!”
“What is a 'pay phone?'”
“People put money in the phone to call people they need to talk to.”
(eye roll) “Why don't they just text?”

At age 9, my daughter is a Facebook master and she has her own blog. Grandma knows that she responds nearly instantaneously to emails, and she is much more natural and interested via email than on the phone. Her other grandparents struggle with this – I recently set them up on facebook so they could keep in touch with the family and see our pictures – but it has been a long and difficult battle to persuade them to use the new technology that would connect them to the family they so love.

New technology scares us. We aren't at all sure how to use it – and we are fearful of “messing it up.” Companies sell identity theft security programs to an older generation by preying on this fear and making the internet seem much more dangerous than it actually is. However, as individuals and in business, we must evolve and learn to use this new technology... or suffer the fate of the pay phones.

I am now going to offer a bit of inspiration to anyone who remains fearful of social networks, internet marketing or “content marketing.” Ironically, this inspiration is derived from a 400-year-old work, The Art of Worldly Wisdom. In it, the monk Baltasar Gracian y Morales states:

Renew your Brilliance

'Tis the privilege of the Phoenix. Ability is wont to grow old, and with it fame. The staleness of custom weakens admiration, and a mediocrity that's new often eclipses the highest excellence grown old. Try therefore to be born again in valor, in genius, in fortune, in all. Display startling novelties, rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that your loss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins you applause in the new.

It is much better to be mediocre when trying something new than to continue to rely on one's older perfections. Reach out, learn and embrace the new. Whether as an individual or as a business owner, let your light shine in previously unexplored space. The internet and social networks are a vastly expanding space right now. We will all either expand into it or be eclipsed by it – the choice is ours.

(Our blog is written by Matt D'Rion and/or Chad Lane, owners of Worry Free Consulting... if you know Matt you know he doesn't have a daughter, we will let you guess which one of the guys wrote this one. Feel free to contact either of them Matt's Email and Chad's Email or comment below.)

How to get people to unsubscribe from your email list

I'm a big fan of subscribing to other's email lists. It gives me an opportunity to watch my own actions as a "consumer" of information. Which emails do I open? Which do I auto-delete? Worse, which cause me to unsubscribe?

 At the top of the "unsubscribe" list are those most annoying "Fooled ya!" Re: lines. They go something like this:

re: Thank you for subscribing to our premium service! You can bet I open those fast, heart pounding. I quickly scroll through the email, sure that I've been the victim of identity theft - because I sure as hell didn't subscribe to a premium service... I barely opened the other emails you sent me. Then truth outs - I (or someone pretending to be me) did not subscribe. Rather, I've been tricked into reading through a sales pitch that extols the virtues of the premium service.

Guess what? I just became an unsubscriber. Any organization that feels the need to trick me to get me to open their emails is not an organization from which I wish to receive further communication.

I understand the difficulty. I empathize with you and your crappy re lines that no one wants to open. Maybe you even have a good idea or two - but guess what? You have to learn how to hook me - not trick me.

There is a technology to writing decent hooks - and good copy. Fooling people plays no part in it, "Mad men" to the contrary. Enthusiasm. Reality. Interest. Without these things, your emails are little digital fliers that have been tossed to the winds of overfilled inboxes.

What does google maps say about you?

Google maps is an incredibly powerful tool.  Only 25 years ago, the ability to walk the streets of Paris, block by block, and view the buildings as they exist nearly in present time while sitting on a computer several thousand miles away would have seemed impossible.  Never has the human race had such an accurate idea of where we were in relationship to one another.  Compare this ability with the maps available to explorers 200 years ago, and we can appreciate how far we've come.

Recently, a boy who had been lost for over 25 years rediscovered his family using only his childhood memories and google maps.  He was five years old when he fell asleep on a train for 14 hours, arriving in Calcutta with no knowledge of where his home was located, no family and no money.  After becoming a beggar then getting adopted and relocating to Australia, he had no way to retrace his steps to rediscover his family until he used google maps to view the countryside in a 14-hour radius around Calcutta until he recognized landmarks from childhood.  From there, he was able to locate his mother and reunite with her after 25 years.  

This story  is an inspiring reminder of the fact that anyone can find us using google maps.  For better or worse, anyone can use "street view" and look right at our front door.  They can also read the reviews which have been written about us by our past customers.  

How much control do you have right now over your google places presence?  Have you addressed any negative reviews?  Have you updated your company's profile?  Do you ask your happy customers to write favorable reviews?  Remember that many people use their "google maps" function on their phones to navigate to your brick and mortar location.  Better that this function is accompanied by happy, thoughtful reviews and an updated profile.  This simple action only takes a few minutes, is free, and may well produce dividends in increased traffic.

If a man who grew up as an illiterate orphan on the streets of Calcutta can eventually be reunited with his family through the use of google maps, then we can acknowledge that google maps is now as integral in our lives as google itself, and we can learn to use these tools for our own advantage and success.  

How to get the new Facebook Pages

Surprisingly I didn't find a single blog on doing this; I went ahead and filled the void for anyone looking to get the new Pages up and running right away.

This is a walk through to help those businesses with existing Facebook pages convert to the new Facebook pages launched February 29th, 2012.

Step 1. Log into Facebook

Step 2. Go to www.facebook.com/about/pages

Step 3. Click the green box that says "Preview Your Pages" in the center of the screen

Step 3a. Provisional: if the box says "Create a Page" get logged into Facebook and try again

Step 4. On this next screen you will see any pages you manage listed, you will have the ability to Preview them with the new look. Click the button.

Step 5. Pick a background photo for your main image by hovering your mouse to the right of your small photo. (a few inches to the right)

Step 6. Click and hold on the image to re-position it by dragging up and down.

Step 7. Click "Publish" (knowing that when you do, this is the page the whole world will now see and your old one is gone.)

Once your new page is up and running it is recommended that most of you re-evaluate your strategy on Facebook in light of this new change. What are you doing on there? Why? What are you talking about? Who is talking with you and why? These sorts of things. It's important. Those with a clear sense of how to use it for their brand or business will win. Those with no sense and merely the decision to post the occasional "we do blah" post will lose. Think of an hourglass, the top wide, the bottom wide, the middle narrow... that is the new Facebook pages. There is no middle ground. Find a way or hire someone to find a way to make your page worthwhile and interesting. A page that will be shared with friends by their friends. A page that is social and will get you more business.

Connect with me on linkedin.com/in/worryfreeconsulting and follow me at twitter.com/mattdrion

Worry Free Consulting: We manage your marketing. You manage your business.

Something is missing.

There is valuable information to be gained by analyzing the difference between Google+ and Facebook; one has 800 Million users while the other has yet to gain popularity. If we can isolate what the difference is we may be able to apply it to our own marketing strategies.

I found a key difference between the two social networks that when examined provide clues of how to be successful in ones marketing.

Like many of the tech savvy, I tried out Google+. It offered a single point of log in for my email, social networking, calendar and the myriad of services I use through Google. This was quite appealing. Here I am weeks later, still using Facebook and paying little if no attention to my Google+ account. Why is that?


The purpose of social media is to connect people without a via. Even though a via will always exist, technically, (i.e. your computer, your phone, the network it travels on and so on) the perception of instant accessibility and exchange of information between friends and people, with censorship and corporate oversight, is what drives a social network.

Additionally the ability to create an effect on another drives a social network.

Google+ is missing this key factor. 

Go on Google+ and try to say hi to a friend on their "wall" or "profile". You can't. Try to say something funny and off the wall or try to post a video to their page to make them laugh. You can't. You can only comment on the things they have already posted about. You can comment on their comments but cannot comment on the person themselves or on anything you just happened to feel like saying.

People have gotten so accustomed to being able to go on someone else's page and say whatever they wanted to say or do on that page. It's not just about saying things on their own profiles. They want to say things on other people's profiles too. Google+ doesn't offer the same freedom. Thus something is missing and users go back to Facebook. 

Understanding this key factor of engagement in interpersonal relationships allows one to see that it applies to business to consumer relationships as well. If a business is to engage and be engaged by their consumers online, with the purpose of improving brand awareness and thus the bottom line, they must have a strategy and plan in place to accomplish this end. Google+ as it is currently set up does not allow for this instant interaction. Each business category i.e. hotels, small business, major corporations etc, will have it's own marketing budget and it's own successful way of obtaining engagement with customers and clients. A small business owner must find that unique way to use social media to their advantage.

I help my customers to accomplish this by studying who and what they are and who and what their customers are. It is not always obvious how to engage the small business with the customers in an online platform. Once one finds the right mix of online and offline marketing tools, they are able to deliver the right message at the right time and be the one that their customer (or potential customer) thinks of first.