Thursday, April 30th, 2009

How To Mazimize The Number of Valuable People You Meet In Life (The Connector Exercise)

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A number of people ask me how I obtained a large network of contacts (I have 3,000 names in my iPhone).

Strangely, I’ve never thought of myself as a schmoozer…I’m actually fairly introverted.

But I’ve been very lucky. A few things were in my favor:

1. Same Career Track — I have followed a fairly narrow career track of technology/media/Internet for 20 years now.
2. Social Positions — My positions have centered around other people (I was a journalist, a deal-maker, entrepreneur, etc.)
3. Decently-Organized — I’m a detail-oriented/organized-type of person and so I’ve done an ok job at entering in people’s contact information over those years

So, the 3,000 names isn’t that impressive — it really just came from 20 years times of storing an average of 100+ contacts per year.

That’s just 1 new contact I made (and stored) every 3 days. I’m sure you could do that (unless you’re a monk at a convent in which case you’re probably in the wrong place right now!).

But there is one secret I was reminded of a few years ago that I wished I had implemented earlier on in my career!

It’s only briefly mentioned on page 37 of the soft-cover version of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

In a word: “Connectors.”

Here’s an exercise I’d like you to do (should take 15 minutes and be fun):

1. Get out a blank piece of paper or word processing document.
2. Make a list of the 40 most valuable people to you with one per line (exclude family).
3. To the right of each person’s name, write down the name of the person who introduced you to that person (now you have two names on each of your 40 lines).
4. Now to the right of that second name, write down the name of who introduced you to that person.
5. If you can’t remember who introduced you to a person (or perhaps you just met at school or work then leave that line alone.
6. Keep adding a person to the right of the previous person until you feel like you can’t go any further.

Here’s a snippet from my list:

• Jamie>Chad>
• Charlie>Ted>Erin
• Jen>Ted>Erin
• Lenny>Jen>Ted>Erin
• Alex>Ted>Erin
• Zack>Chris> Chad & Ted
• Bruce>Chad>
• Todd>Dave
• Mike>Dave
• Jacquie>Tracy>Erin
• Robert>Chad
• Mary>Dave

Now, you’ll start to notice that just a few people — in my case Chad, Ted, Erin and Dave — are responsible for connecting me to most my friends.

Gladwell calls these people “Connectors.”

I’m a Connector too, though not as good as my Connectors.

So, if you want to to expand your network, here are a few lessons:

1. Identify the Connectors in Your Life — Find out who they are and add value to their life (so they’ll keep introducing you to others).
2. Ask Your Connectors Who Their Connectors Are — Connectors are usually very good at having many Connectors themselves.
3. Try Being a Connector Yourself — Offer to introduce people of value to others who need help!
4. Leverage LinkedIn — Read why You Must Be Linked In, an article about that amazing networking tool.
5. Read Tipping Point.

I was inspired enough by this exercise to take Chad & Ted out for a yummy steak dinner at Gene & Georgetti’s in Chicago where I presented each of them with a personalized gift. It was of minimal value compared to the value they have given me through their Connections.

Thanks, Mr. Gladwell and thank you, Connectors!

What do you know about Connectors and Networking? Please comment below.

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Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

How The Ritz Carlton & I Run Our Meetings: The Daily Huddle

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The Daily Huddle has arguably been one of the greatest productivity and efficiency boosters I’ve personally experienced.

Since I started using it, I’ve run into numerous industry leaders (such as the Ritz Carlton and Johnson & Johnson) who benefit from the Daily Huddle.

Duhh, why didn’t I begin this 20 years ago!

I first read about the concept of the Daily Huddle in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, which may be the best how-to book for small businesses that I’ve read.  Its author Verne Harnish was inspired by the habits of business tycoon John D. Rockefeller and translates those for you to apply to business today.

I know, I sound pretty excited about this stuff — that’s cuz I am!

So, what is the Daily Huddle? Well, for starters, I use the term “Daily Huddle” because I like the ring of it — you may have heard it called names like Daily Scrum, Daily Pulse, Daily Agile, Daily Lineup (Ritz Carlton) or Daily StandUp. The concept is what counts.

Basics

Let me outline the basics first:

• Time of Day — It should be as early as possible (ideally in the morning).
• Length of Time — 5 to 15 minutes (depending on the size of the team).
• Number of Attendees — Teams of 7 or fewer people (if you have teams that are larger than 7, you probably have a team that needs to be split up).
• Who Attends — Every person in your company should be attending at least one Daily Huddle (but no person should attend more than two or three).
• Who Runs It — I recommend you pick the senior manager of the particular team to run it (unless he or she is not organized in which case pick the most senior organized person).
• Where Does it Take Place — It can be done in person or over the phone or on videoconferencing if you’re lucky enough to have one of those.

Agenda

The agenda is the same every day. I recommend you first test out the Rockefeller Habits’ suggested agenda. That’s what I did and we didn’t need to change a thing.

1. What’s Up — The first section of the Daily Huddle should be about each of your team members sharing the What’s Up of what they’ve accomplished since you all last met. Total Time: 3 to 5 minutes (Every participant should talk for no more than 30 seconds each).
2. The Numbers — The second section is about the numbers of your business. Here, you should cover the critical metrics that are most important to your team. For example, in my Sales Daily Huddle, we report on such vitals as total sales by brand from the previous day (with comparisons to prior periods) and percentage of our monthly sales goal we project. Total Time: 3 to 5 minutes
3. Roadblocks — This section focuses on the roadblocks (also called “bottlenecks”) that the team members face. Total Time: 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Values & Ideology — This last section covers values-related items that don’t fit nicely into the first 3 sections of the meeting. An example of Values or Ideology items might be praise that someone outside the group has earned or a personal item that someone outside the meeting is facing that is affecting their performance (for example, we just had a woman on our team whose neighborhood in Santa Barbara was on fire (from Wildfires); and one of our values is to make sure to take care of such people in need of assistance (by offering to pick up her slack and be extra supportive of her and her family).

Bonus Tips

Here are some other things I’ve noticed from my experience with the Daily Huddle.

• Give it a Week — It will be tough for your people to adopt at first (the first one will be awkward when, for instance, you ask people “What’s Up?) — But it will become easier as the team figures it out (give it a good week!)
• Don’t Problem Solve — You should keep it focused on problem-identification and not problem-solving (if there’s a problem that can’t be solved with a “one-liner” by one of the group, then you should schedule to meet off-line.
• Start at Odd Time — Try scheduling it and a time other than the half-hour or hour (e.g. try 10:02am in the morning). Reason: People will remember it more and you’ll find they show up at 10am to 10:01am (instead of being late!).
• It Helps The Rest of Your Day — The Daily Huddle will help you and your team better figure out how to spend the rest of their day.
• Start with Senior People — The most effective way to roll out the Daily Huddle is to have your organization’s leaders do it first (secret: if leaders do it, it will trickle down through the rest of your business).

And please read Mastering the Rockefeller Habits — it’s chock full of other valuable habits and ideas for businesses to grow.

You should comment below about your experience with the Daily Huddle — I really want to hear your opinion!

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Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

A Simple 4-Step Approach on How To Sell Better (SPIN Selling)

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I used to consider “Sales” a bad word; until I got good at it!

In this case if you’re not comfortable with the idea of “selling’ you can replace “Sales” with “persuading” or “problem solving” — now let’s help you sell!

Neil Rackham wrote a terrific book called SPIN Selling in 1996. What I like about it is that it provides you a framework for selling better based on the results and experience of thousands of salespeople and their supervisors.

Most important tip: The more questions you ask, the more effective you will be.

So, what is SPIN Selling?

SPIN is an acronym that stands for Situation, Problem, Implication and Need and the book recommends that you ask questions about all four of those.

Below are some SPIN Selling questions to ask (let’s pretend you are selling vacuum cleaners):

Situation Questions

• How many carpets or rugs do you have in your house?

Problem Questions

• What problems do you have with your vacuum cleaner?
• How old is it?
• How often does your vacuum cleaner’s belt break often?
• How heavy is it?
• Where do you store it?

Implication Questions

• Is your vacuum cleaner so heavy that it aches your back to lift it from the closet or even to vacuum?
• Is you vacuum so large and heavy that it’s hard to store away?

Need/Payoff Questions

• How much happier would you be if you had a new vacuum cleaner that was half the height and weight, and could easily be stored and NEVER needed a new belt again?

So, when trying to persuade or problem-solve or sell, try asking lots of questions first and focus on your buyer and what will lead to their big payoff!

SPIN Selling is a must-read for any business-person; it explains SPIN selling techniques and backs it up with detailed research. Rackham later came out with the SPIN Selling Fieldbook which is also an excellent read.

I recommend you buy SPIN Selling first and then if you have people on your team who you want to share the concept with, then buy them a copy of the slightly less expensive Fieldbook.

Do you have any thoughts on the SPIN Selling technique or the topic of sales in general — if so, please make a comment below.

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Monday, April 27th, 2009

How I Boosted My FICO Score By 162 Points…To 778

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I used to have poor credit.

And if you’re like me, you’ve had to fund some or all of your business on credit. When I ran Mojam.com,  I had to use cash withdrawls off of five credit cards just to meet payroll for a month or two!

Unfortunately, I was a dumb kid back then and didn’t pay back the loans fast enough (causing poor credit!).

So, below are some learnings from restoring my credit.

First off, this article focuses on how to maximize your opportunity to get personally-guaranteed credit…so it’s useful if you A) Run a small business where you have to personally gurantee your credit cards or B) Want to improve your credit outside of business (e.g. for mortgage or automobile loans).

Ok, first off, how do you measure your credit? — Currently, one matters more than all others: Your FICO score. FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation, a credit-scoring business that works with the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and Transunion) monitoring people’s credit.

FICO scores range between 300 and 850 (the higher being better) with a score of:

• 760 or better being Excellent (you’ll get offered the lowest loan rates with flexibility)
• 700 to 759 being Very Good (you’ll be offered above-average terms)
• 680 to 699 being Good (average terms)
• 620 to 679 being OK (you’ll be offered below-average terms)
• Below 620 — If you’re below 620 it is very uncertain what kind of loan you’d be offered, especially these days

FICO doesn’t make you loans but they provide the report card — the FICO Score — for others who do.

So, you might ask: How do I fix my credit?

Well, it’s based on a secret algorithm that changes all the time (sort of like Coke’s recipe or Google’s algorithm).

This article is sort of like reverse-engineering FICO.

I asked Scott Jones, a credit repair expert I worked with at CreditLine, to talk about the key ingredients of FICO’s secret recipe and how important each  ingredient is (the % in parentheses). Here’s what he said:

Your Payment History (35% of score)

Basically, paying on time helps lift your score, while paying late, liens and bankruptcy will lower it.

The Amount You Owe (30%)

Keep your balance low to zero. Lenders don’t like to see you using up all your credit on your credit cards (i.e. letting the balance get high) so if you can keep it low (or, better yet, pay it down to zero), you’ll get some points for that.

The Length of Your Credit History (15%)

The longer you have a credit card the more points you get on your FICO score. Even if you use a credit card just sparingly (like me with my Mervyn’s Card), you get some good FICO points for just having it for a long time.

New Credit Inquiries (10%)

This one is interesting: When you apply for a loan (including getting a credit card), the company providing you with credit (i.e. Visa or Mastercard or AMEX or a department store or mortgage company or Auto Dealership) makes what is called a “New Credit Inquiry” with the credit agencies to see what your credit looks like. Each new inquiry can LOWER your FICO score (my guess is by 10 to 30 points) for a short amount of time (about three months); so, be careful not to take out a few credit cards at one time.

Get the Right Types of Credit (10%)

Different credit is measured differently. Below is one credit expert’s prioritization of which types of credit in order of importance (first being most important).

1. Home loans
2. Car loans
3. Major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, AMEX)
4. Department store credit cards
5. Student loans

Here are some other tips & final notes:

• You Start Off Pretty Good — When you first get a FICO score (18 years old appears to be the minimum age to get a credit card) you start off from a position of strength! Since 30% of the FICO score depends on money you owe, my guess is that you start off with a FICO score somewhere in the 600 range.
• Be Maniacal about paying all of your bills on time — I don’t mean to scare you, but I once paid a Macy’s credit card bill 60 days late and it cost me about 50 points on my FICO score!
• If You Carry a Balance on Your Credit Card — If you must hold a balance on your credit card (I recommend that you don’t) then try to keep it to half or less of your available credit.
• Don’t Do Debt Consolidation — Credit consolidation (putting all your debts onto one credit card) is usually a bad idea (unless the other card is lower interest and you can pay THAT balance off within a year).
• Own just a few credit cards (I think 2 to 5 cards seems right) and use them once in awhile and pay them off immediately when you do.
• Don’t Cancel Credit Cards — I don’t believe that canceling credit cards can help your FICO score and it can definitely hurt it (because of the Length of Credit History piece)
• If you ever get billed for something and you believe that you do not owe the money, you should IMMEDIATELY contact the biller and straighten it out (and make sure it’s corrected by Experian, Transunion and Equifax).

If you’re like me and you made a bunch of mistakes already, you can repair your credit but it takes time. A Couple of Options:

Do it Yourself — You can get free online credit reports from all three agencies at CreditReport.com and you should! Go to Check out the details of each (they will list each one of your credit cards or loans) and if you can find an incorrect piece of info or an inconsistency among the three agencies (one of them reports that you were late on paying your AMEX card and the other two do not), then write a “letter of correction/deletion” to try to fix your credit report.

That doesn’t harm you and typically can turn into them correcting/removing the item in a way that positively impacts your credit

Use a Credit Repair Service — I used a service called CreditLine and I ended up increasing my score from 616 to 778 within two and one-half years; an average of about 15 points every three months.

I used their premium service and it was worth every penny. It helped me get bettter terms on my car loan and gives me piece of mind about getting a loan for a anything else in the future. They also provided me with phone-based credit counseling.

Either way, make sure you’re in tune with your FICO score, apply what tips you can and good luck with your credit restoration.

Question for you: Do you know how credit works outside the U.S.? If you do, please comment below with any tips you have — thanks!

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Sunday, April 26th, 2009

5 Easy Steps On How To Be An Early Riser

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The smartest move I’ve made in years was when I began waking up early (around 5:45am now).

So, here’s how you can wake up early:

1) Get Control of Your Alarm Clock
You’ll need to use an alarm clock at first (though you won’t need it two weeks from now!).

What time should you pick? Be gentle with yourself at first — start with just a half-hour earlier than you’re currently waking up.

I recommend you set your alarm to an unusually exact time (I picked 6:07am because I was born in 1967)…it’s been proven that you will be more responsive to unusual times (rather than on-the-hour or half-hour times (e.g. 6:00am or 6:30am) (see The Daily Huddle about starting meetings at odd times).

And try to pick something soothing to wake up to (soft music or a soft voice is fine). If you’re really new-agey then use one of those alarm clocks that has ocean sounds (they also have alarm clock lamps that slowly add light!).

When the alarm goes off, wake up (don’t hit the snooze button!).  Trust me: just get your butt out of bed.

Do something affirmative when you wake up. For instance, when I wake up, I put each foot on the floor and say “Thank” (left foot) “You” (right foot) — that starts me off on a positive note.

I promise you that within 5 minutes of waking up you will not feel like going back to bed.

2) Make Your First Activity Warm and Passionate
You should want to wake up earlier to do something you love…so make sure you do!

The first thing I do when I wake up is to have a hot cup of water with fresh lemon juice squeezed into it and some organic honey!

Next, I have a routine for my first activity. I start with my “Hour of Power;” that consists of me sitting in a comfortable chair on the East side of my apartment (where the sun is rising) and writing down a few creative things that I’d like to do for the next hour.

Then I do them! Sometimes it’s reading a book, other times it’s playing guitar and sometimes it’s writing (like this article).

I then go work out for an hour (basketball or yoga).

Whatever you do, don’t start your day with reactive tasks such as reading emails or paying the bills.  Go with proactive/creative stuff.

3) Beware Caffeine’s Six-Hour Half-Life
If you consume caffeine (I do), you’re going to need to consume your last sip a bit earlier (I recommend 1pm at the latest).

The reason is that caffeine has what’s called a 6-hour half-life, meaning that if you have a cup of coffee (average of 50 milligrams of caffeine) at 3pm, then you will still have 25 milligrams of coffee at 9pm — it’s the equivalent of you drinking a half-cup of coffee at 9pm at night!

Some of you might say: “I drink caffeine late in the day and still get my eight hours of shut-eye.” I believe you. But your 8 hours probably isn’t very restful sleep…you may wake up groggy (that’s because you didn’t get enough deep sleep).

For those of you hooked on caffeine, just start to wean yourself off of the afternoon habit by switching to decaf (still has some caffeine) or a white tea (has a little caffeine in it) or an herbal tea (no caffeine).

I drink one cup of a black or green tea at about 9:30am and then I have decaffeinated latte (fancy, I know) at about 12noon.

With less caffeine in you at night, you’ll sleep more restfully, and it will be easier for you to wake up early every day!

4) When to Go To Sleep:  Have a Book You Love
As you get into this process of waking up early, you’ll begin to naturally get tired earlier at night. This may take about a week.

But what time should you go to sleep? Steve Pavlina recommends simply going to sleep when you’re tired in his terrific How to Become an Early Riser article.

What I do is get into bed 8 to 8 ½ hours before my desired wake up time (e.g. around 9:30pm to wake up at 5:45pm).

I then start reading a book until I’m sleepy.

It’s important to pick a book you love so that you’ll look forward to going to bed! I fall asleep within 30 minutes (that’s how I get my 7 1/2 to 8 hours sleep). .

5) Commit to a Week
Practice your new waking up early for at least seven days…by that time, you will start getting used to it.

You’ll naturally wake up earlier (you won’t even need an alarm clock within about three weeks) and fall asleep earlier too.

You’ll love waking up earlier so much that you’ll test out waking up earlier and earlier until you find the ideal time.

As the saying goes, the early bird really does get the worm.

While I’m a big fan of being an early riser, please remember about the importance of sleep as a form of renewal (see my article on How To Recharge Yourself).

Postscript

After first writing my How To Be An Early Riser article, I began jotting down examples of  other early risers — especially famous early risers.

I thought I’d share those with you:

Famous Early Risers

• Leo Babauta (Blog Writer) — 4:30am
• Mary Higgins Clark (Writer) — Often began writing at 5:00am.
• Winston Churchill — He would wake up at 7:30am and work from bed until 11:00am.
• Thomas Edison
• Ian Fleming
• Benjamin Franlin (famous for his quote: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
• Steve Pavlina (Writer ) — Wakes up at 5:00am (and says he’s already exercised, showered and had breakfast by 6:30am).
• Sylvia Plath (Writer) — Often began writing at 5am.
• Margaret Thatcher
• Walt Whitman

 

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Saturday, April 25th, 2009

A Mis-Hire Costs You 13X That Person’s Salary: Why You Must Topgrade

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It can cost you 13-times a person’s annual salary if you hire the wrong person, according to Brad Smart.

Brad is the main man behind a couple of books, Topgrading and Topgrading for Sales, which I highly recommend to anyone involved in hiring.

A dozen of my colleagues and I were lucky enough to spend two days with Brad in Chicago in October 2005 when we took his Topgrading training program (which I also recommend).

The 13X cost of a mishire was a stunner! …

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Friday, April 24th, 2009

Why You Should Be LinkedIn: Is $948 Per Connection (Per Year!) Appealing?

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Are you linked in?

If you’re in business, you likely should be!

LinkedIn is a business networking tool that allows you to keep track of your previous and current contacts as well as get linked to new ones.

Why should you care? Because each of your contacts is worth an average of $948 in annual revenue, according to a 2009 article by Business Week Magazine/Harvard Business Review. (note: there used to be a link for this article but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have been archived — at least I can no longer find it). .

I’ve been using LinkedIn since it was founded by Reid Hoffman in December of 2002.

You can see my profile here: LinkedIn (note: You’ll only be able to see my public profile there unless you are already a LinkedIn member).

LinkedIn is similar to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, only it’s focused purely on business.

There are numerous other professional networking sites out there — with names such as Plaxo, Xing, ZoomInfo, Ecademy, Spoke, OpenBC — but I believe LinkedIn has them all beat.

Here are some of the reasons I recommend this online networking tool:

• Old Friends & Colleagues Can Find You — LinkedIn has a neat feature that allows you to enter in past emails that you have used (e.g. from old jobs or personal email addresses you don’t use much if at all) so that your contacts don’t have to know your current email address to reach you.

• You Can Network Into New Partners & Customers — You can go onto LinkedIn and find individuals with their titles at most major businesses and many smaller ones. LinkedIn will indicate how many connections away from you they are (e.g. 2 connections away means that the two of you have someone in common (which LinkedIn will then tell you so that your friend can introduce you to the third-party!).

• Company Profiles — You can search a company by name and find profiles of many of their current and former employees; as well as see who their newest hires are and the most-viewed profiles. The Companies section even shows you their average age, gender breakdown and top schools that their people attended!

• You Can Size Up People You Are About to Meet — If you’ve been introduced to a person and are soon going to meet with them for the first time, I recommend linking in to them ahead of time; that way you will be able to see who their connections are (perhaps you even have shared connections) and do some extra homework for the meeting.

• You Can Have a Permanent Resume/Biography — LinkedIn allows you to put the background of your entire career in one place for you or others (recruiters love LinkedIn) to use.

• You Can Post/Find Jobs Closer To You — LinkedIn’s Jobs section is a very logical way to match a business with a worker since it shows how many connections away from each other the hiring manager and prospective employee are.

I have a short-cut for you to beef up your number of LinkedIn connections..the following tool helped accelerate the growth of my linked in network.

Use their Import Webmail Contacts feature (It’s an option in the Add Connections section and might also be offered when you first sign up). LinkedIn then will go check out all of the email addresses from your email account and offer you the option to invite any or all of them to link in.

I personally chose to invite only the people who were already LinkedIn members (LinkedIn indicates that) and you can send one email to all of them with a personalized message (which I recommend).

Here’s a great 8-Step Action Plan on Setting Up & Maintaining LinkedIn written by a networking pro for a Webinar he presented to Chubb.

And if you want to expand your network even further, check out The Connector Exercise.

Good luck with your networkin’.

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Friday, April 24th, 2009

Got Googlejuice? 9 Simple Tips for Showing Up in Search Results

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Googlejuice!

If you had to master one concept in online marketing, this would surely be it.

I’ll give some Googlejuice tips below…but first, some of you might be asking: what is Googlejuice?

Googlejuice is a catchall for a handful of things that you and others can do to make your products, business or anything else show up high in Google’s rankings when people search.

By the way, there’s a great book called What Would Google …

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Googlejuice!

If you had to master one concept in online marketing, this would surely be it.

I’ll give some Googlejuice tips below…but first, some of you might be asking: what is Googlejuice?

Googlejuice is a catchall for a handful of things that you and others can do to make your products, business or anything else show up high in Google’s rankings when people search.

By the way, there’s a great book called What Would Google Do? that recently came out — it has a few pages on Googlejuice and in general how to work better with Google.

So why is Googlejuice so important? Because it can send enormous traffic to your Web site — and you don’t have to pay marketing dollars for it!

Question for You:

When you search on the names of your product categories, products, company, executives or industry, does your organization show up first every time?

If the answer is yes, please contact me as I’d like your advice!

If the answer is no, you may find the rest of this article helpful.

What’s the secret? I don’t know.

Google Juice is based on secret algorithms, and we’ll probably get the formula around the time Coke gives out its secret recipe!

GoogleJuice Tips

But, there are some basic Googlejuice tips you can start working on now:

• Be Open – You should provide as much relevant information about your business as you can. Unless you’re giving up trade secrets (i.e. some secret algorithm or patent you own), you should publish it on the Web. The New York Times saw exponential growth when it freed its newspaper articles on the Web (it had previously charged readers money for accessing its articles online)

• Be Unique – If you have information that is rare or unique, that can help your Googlejuice! For example, if you sell an unusual product line of “Fabricated Resin Plates (I made that up),” mention that exact phrase on your Web site. Since very few other businesses sell such a product line, your site will come up very high for the people searching any variation of “Fabricated Resin Plates.”

• Have Many Links to You– The more sites that link to you the better; Google considers these to be endorsements of your reputation.

• Have Quality Links to You — The higher their Page Rank (a score Google gives your site (named after founder Larry “Page”) the more Google Juice you get.

• Have .Gov and .Org Links to You – Google sometimes gives links from .Gov and .Org sites more Juice than links from .Com sites (all other things equal) because they are typically linking out for reasons other than making money.

• Be Transparent – Show the world who you really are. If you messed up on some product or have bad news, you should consider mentioning it on your Web site (perhaps in a blog…Others outside your company are going to be writing/talking about it anyway (wouldn’t you rather have your prospects/customers hear about it from you!?)

• Be Clear & Specific – If you’re in the business of selling a vetinarian instrument for operating on squirrels, say it…People do search on such specific terms and if when they do they will find you!

• Be Simple – Google tries to behave like a human so don’t get fancy with graphics and such…just simply describe your services.

• Have Permalinks – Google rewards you for Web pages that stick around a long time (as long as they have useful information)…so if you have some valuable information, write it on a Web page and keep it there!

Now go enjoy a Googlejuice smoothie!

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