You do get what you pay for in today’s world and you know something….the cheapest isn’t always the best solution for your business.  But, still today, many real professional organizations still are getting beat up on price.  As a small business owner myself I totally get the importance of healthy cash flow and the issues many of us face around preserving cash.  However I also understand the value of “investing in our business”.  Here is the secret…Sometimes this value costs money, are you prepared to invest in this value.

Another critical component is around focus. Does the person you are chatting with about your online marketing do this full-time?

In the social media landscape we are drowning in a red sea of so-called professionals ranging from people who do this sort of stuff as a hobby, virtual administrators are moving into social media and SEO and then there are those who think they can simply do it after selling promotional items for 14 years.  There are many people who do what I do as a profession as a hobby (like my days in the computer support business in Calgary).  Not to toot my own horn but I spend every waking hour focused on delivering value to our Ulistic clients – plain and simple.   Social Media, search engine optimization and online marketing is not just another thing that I do in addition to a job I may have or another business which draws my focus away.

You get what you pay for and you get value from those who are professionals.  What works better for you?

IT Bottlenecks Drive adoption of on Demand Marketing solutions

In this published report (you can download here) the author report on the disconnect between IT and Marketing, especially how IT and marketing are not seeing eye to eye on the whole online marketing momentum.  The marketing folks see IT as a complex bottleneck and IT sees marketing/sales as an expense or risk to the organization.  To be completely candid in my opinion, no wonder so many small business IT shops are horrible in their own marketing efforts and struggle with this important part of business.

Also in the report, the author identifies how more and more marketing folks are starting to use software as a service (SaaS) offerings where the IT departments, MSP or IT Pro are bypassed and not involved in the process of choosing a solution.  67% of those surveyed complained about their IT service provider (or in-house IT) and are moving towards other online or web-based solutions to bypass the complexities put in place by IT and also the high costs demanded by some technology firms.  Marketing solutions are moving towards the “on demand” model vs. the old on-premise models.  These include social media platforms, CRM solutions and even email technologies.

By the way, how does IT respond – they invest in more complex solutions to block applications or web services, building more of a separation in the organization.

During Spring Training I mentioned to the group that consulting with their clients on marketing and removing the barriers will bring additional value to those they serve and position them truly as a business consultant and not just another techy firm.  This is why Ulistic launched the Ulistic Partner Program to help those Managed Services Providers and IT consultants help serve their clients in a different way and with services they are looking for.

I still listen to news radio (only when I am not in the mood for my usual selection of 80’s hair band metal) when I am driving to our Ulistic office in Southeast Calgary.  It is only for the 15 minute drive, just enough to get the latest traffic, stock market information and news headlines.  Sometimes, I will even tune into Dave Rutherford to hear his daily rant on QR77 or listen to what Charles Adler has to say in the afternoon.  That is the extent of my news watching, listening or reading.

I read the Calgary Herald Business Section the odd Monday morning just to see what new small businesses are starting up and the odd time will I read or even glance through the entire morning paper.  When I travel in the United States, the hotels deliver USA Today or Wall Street Journal or other US Papers which usually end up in a pile in one corner of my hotel room.  Goes to show that the news in print for me is just something I am not interested in reading.

I, perhaps like many of our colleagues are electing to tune into online sources for news.  Why?  Perhaps it is the grass-roots reporting, the real story without the right or left-wing opinions attached with the story.  I will however tune into my niche blogs on the industries I work with and have Twitter alert me when something happens which requires my attention.  How about you?

This weekend I read an interesting article online on how the President of CNN is concerned about Social Media.  I am not shocked by this concern from a major US media source and I am sure others in the world share this concern.   CNN and all major news outlets should be concerned on the power of social media has for sharing of news related items.  There is an old saying, see it in the paper tomorrow, see on TV later in the day, hear about it soon on radio or get notified immediately on social media.  This is where news is now breaking and you just need to turn to the US Airways crash in New York for an example of the power of Social Media in the news world today.

Today my news sources are guys like Chris Brogan, Joe Panettieri, Larry Walsh, Bob Burg – just to name a few.  These guys are now journalists in our online world. I truly trust what they have to say for the niches I follow.

Who is Stuart Crawford

“Stuart is the go-to person for anything social media. He has an in-depth knowledge of not only all the parts that make up social media, but also how to make them work together for you. He is an entrepreneur to the core and he understands that whatever is implemented: twitter, blog, rss, video, etc. it has to be streamlined so that it takes the least amount of time possible and yet still be laser sharp as far as effectiveness goes.

Stuart is great to work with and if technical roadblocks occur, he is an out of the box thinker when it comes to remedies.”

Service Category: IT Consultant
Year first hired: 2009 (hired more than once)
Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity

Monica Santiago, On Page Productions

In order to use this feature when it comes to Canada, you must turn “Add a location to your tweets” on within your profile settings.

So far this feature is only available in the United States.

What do you think about all this location aware stuff happening with social media services?

For more information on how this service effects Twitter for business in Calgary or even your hobby tweets visit http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/26810/entries/78525

I have a few moments in Denver and thought I would post something about my experience traveling once again on United Airlines.  They are not that bad but they are not that good either.  However, I am noticing that they are trying real hard to improve customer service.

Today is my day of grumpy people, I must be attracting them to me today.  It first started with the guy working at the Red Carpet Club in Phoenix.  He opened up the club in a grumpy mood because the people from the night before left the place a total mess.  Then there was the Vancouver guy who was using every four-letter word because he couldn’t figure out how the code share works between United and Air Canada.  Then finally the grumpy old guy who had his foot out in the aisle of the plane and the flight attendant hit it with the beverage cart.  Of course we was using the same four-letter words screaming at the flight attendant.

Boy, some people are grumpy at 5 AM in the morning.  Will be back in Canada soon, unfortunately these grumpy folks with the exception of the Red Carpet guy were Canadians…time to bury my head in shame!

For the past couple of years I have been involved with a really great group of guys who help each other with marketing and personal development.  MAX is the name of our group and a number of great Calgary companies are part of this marketing exchange group. Our group meets once a month for a couple of hours and also have regular networking events for our members and clients.

Trico Homes, McLean and Partners and Karo Design are just a few of the companies who are part of this core group, including us at Ulistic.  It is great to have the leadership of these great firms to help guide us in the right direction.

Why is it important to have a core group like this?  Well, it is easy…we all get stuck!  Where can you turn to when you are stuck and simply need a bit of a shove in the right direction?  Recently, I asked our group about business networking and where can we turn to use our time better while networking in Calgary?  Also, they provided some amazing direction to help with something I was struggling with.

It is a good idea for you to search out who and what group can help you.

Ulistic will be sharing tomorrow at lunch on the importance of search engine optimization, social media in business and overall marketing

Thanks Stu for inviting Ulistic to participate in your awesome event.  Don’t miss this next time it is being held.

• Business plan
• Leadership plan
• Life plan
• Legacy plan

Joining for the live meeting will be Jamison West from JWCS and Brad Schow from Compudyne. The event is code WES36PAL and it will be held at 9:00 AM Pacific that day. The session is titled Four Plans That Can Change Everything and that is exactly the potential outcome from the session.

If you learn to use these plans, you can change the result of your life and business. Without planning, you leave things up to chance and quite honestly have far less opportunity to achieve your dreams or succeed. We often spend a lot of time focused on our business plan but neglect the things that may be more important. Never forget your life will leave a record, a history and a legacy. Planning can help make sure those turn out as you would like.

Invest an hour and join me for this webcast. To register go to www.mssmallbiz.com/training and select the appropriate session. There are many other great sessions available as well. Hope to meet with you online that day!

I have been following some of the networking tips shared by Bob Burg over the past little while about networking etiquette and what is acceptable bahaviour when it comes to handing out your business card at events, lunches etc.  Well, according to all the experts and networking gurus they state “never give out your card until someone asks for it”.  Good advice in my opinion.

This same approach can spill over to the online world.  Especially one of my favourite business to business sites, LinkedIn.  Why do some people reach out to you when you really have no relationship?  There are legitimate people out there looking for help or advice, great this is what social networking is all about.  Some maybe looking to sell to you, this is what social networking is not about.

Therefore, if you are reaching out to sell something using online social technologies, don’t.  If you are looking at linking up with some to build a network, share experiences, share client needs or seek help or advice….make sure you state that in your request.  You will have a better chance of successfully building your online and face-to-face networks.

Don’t through your card in someone’s face…wait for them to ask for it.

Yep, the number of emails I get daily now since I made the move from a Calgary Small Business Computer Consultant to my new gig working with the business community in Calgary helping many small to midsize corporations with online marketing, social media strategies and search engine optimization have drastically increased.

So no, I don’t want to exchange your garbage links with you! Just because my clients have great page rank doesn’t allow you to spam me asking to exchange links.  That is so 1999 of you.  It simply never works out to be a fair trade anyways.

Go out there and earn your links the right way.  Offer real information that people would love to share, blog about or retweet…but don’t email me asking for a link from my website to yours.  The answer is NO, if you even get an answer from me.