Keith Goodrum

This past weekend we went up to Lake Placid, NY on the spur of the moment. We’ve been talking about heading up there to check it out & this weekend seemed as good as any.

It was cool to see the scenic sights & all the Olympic venues. I was surprised at the amount of activities going on up there. Especially when I considered it a winter sporting/resort area. But there are plenty of summer activates to participate.

The wife & I have started to get into trail hiking this year. We were excited to spend a couple of days hiking the trails. Unfortunately we were rained out Saturday, but that turned out to be a good thing.

Maybe the rain would stop after lunch

We decided to stop in a local deli for a sandwich & see if we could wait out the rain. It’s called the Saranac Sourdough Deli, and is across from the Comfort Inn on Saranac Ave in Lake Placid.

The food was excellent. As was the owner… I think her name was Eileen (Not sure about that). She was super friendly & made you feel comfortable as soon as you walked in the door.

There are a lot of us tourist running around town. And the only way I could tell she was talking to a local was she greeted them by name.

Lesson… It’s the experience stupid.

Yes the food was excellent. They bake many defend kinds of Sourdough bread & use fresh quality ingredients.

The description on the menus is very entertaining. For example the line for the Mountain Woman Combo… “Ladies, I’ve got your back”

But, it is the overall experience that makes this place so much fun to have breakfast or lunch. You are warmly greeted when you come in, you are treated like a regular & you are served great food.

Did you notice all the bases are covered?

They did such a good job with the overall experience we automatically went there for breakfast the next day. We didn’t even consider another place.

If you are ever in Lake Placid I would highly recommend eating there.

That is the simple formula to getting repeat business. So, how can you apply this to your business? Let me know in the comments below.

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Popularity: 26% [?]

Thursday May 8th is my friend Ryan Healy’s birthday. I don’t if you have ever read his blog, but it’s about Business growth, copywriting, ect. Ryan is a top flight marketing consultant & copywriter. He has written for some of the big marketers around. People like Alex Mandossian, Tellman Knudson, Ben Mack, Marc Goldman, Jimmy Sweeney, Pulte Homes & over 60 other clients.

So, why am I telling you all this?

He is giving you a chance to get a book he co-authored titled “Million Dollar Marketing Secrets” for a mere $7… shipping included for residents of U.S., Canada & the U.K. Any one outside of those three countries leave a comment on his blog, and he will get in touch with you privately. This a real book that will be shipped to your door.

I have a copy of this book, and it’s loaded with priceless marketing information. J.P. Maroney got 21 top marketers to each contribute a chapter to the book. Here are a few of the co-authors; Clayton Makepeace, Michel Fortin, Ray Edwards, Ben Mack, Ryan Healy, Jason Moffatt…

Ryan says the chapter by Clayton Makepeace is worth $7 alone… but in my opinion every chapter is worth that and more.

The deadline on this offer is Friday morning May 9th when Ryan wakes up. I’m not sure when Ryan wakes up on Friday mornings… or for that matter any day of the week. So, my suggestion is to head on over there and grab a copy while it still fresh on your mind.

Here is the post at Ryan’s blog: http://www.ryanhealy.com/marketing-book-birthday-gift/. Head on over there scroll down, click on the paypal button and get this book.

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Now is the time to start a blog. Many people have discovered that they are a great tool to get your ideas out to promote you and your business; it builds a relationship with your readers, and the platform simpler than ever to get your message out. For this reason they are more popular than ever.

Here are three reasons why you should start a blog.

1. It’s the best form of marketing and branding you can do for your online business - One of the easiest ways to market your business is to build trust with your market. Relationships and trust build a sense of community. And when you have a sense of community there is no need to use hardcore marketing to make sales.

2. You can use a blog as a direct line of communication - Ryan Healy in his post titled Copywriting Is Not the Most Important Skill said: “It’s my belief that communication is the most important skill you could ever learn.” A blog opens a direct line of communication between you and your readers. This is a great platform for communication. In fact many times you start getting feedback within hours of posting… priceless information.

3. A blog is easier than ever to start - The tools to start a blog are easy to learn & use. You can have a blog started within minutes if you choose to use one of the free services like blogger.com, wordpress.com, or typepad.com. If you wish to host the blog on your own domain, you can be up and running within a couple hours. Where else can you start a business so fast, or so inexpensive?

One of the complaints I hear is people hesitate to start blogging because they believe it would take huge amounts of time to write a blog post everyday. Many people abandon their blogs because they cannot find the time to write blog posts. They are caught up in a busy life, and it tough to carve out the time.

It would take me hours to write a simple blog post…

I had the same problem. It use to take me hours to write a simple 300-word post. It was agonizing, slow and frankly became a drag. I would go through spurts of writing several posts at a time…. then go weeks, even months without posting. My blog looked like it was abandoned at times.

I finally made the decision to figure out how to write faster. After trying many methods without much success… I finally figured it out. I found a speed writing technique, and modified it to make writing blog posts. I can now write a regular blog post in 10 minutes or less. It has been working great, and producing great results.

I’ve recorded this technique, and will be releasing it as a new product called “10 Minute Blog Post”. In it I show you how to write a blog post in 10 minutes. You get to see how I prepare, write and edit a blog post. You get to look over my shoulder as I write one of the posts I wrote for this blog.

Tomorrow Thursday May 1st “10 Minute Blog Post” will be released…

Of course there will be special pricing. Now, I have to warn you these recordings are not pretty. I’m not a professional presenter, and my Camtasia skills suck. It ain’t going to win any awards… it ain’t even going to be nominated.

So, if you are looking for pretty, flashy recordings with fancy graphics… save your money. This is not the product for you. But the information is valuable, and that’s what’s important… how to write a blog post in 10 minutes.

Popularity: 59% [?]

The ultimate deadline is upon us today. In a few hours the fun ends for Taxpayers here in the U.S. Most of the tax preparation offices across the country will be open right up till midnight.

This year is the 1st year in awhile I’ve not worked as a tax preparer. It was nice, but being a tax geek I missed the challenge.

The IRS places a hard deadline for everyone to file his or her taxes. And if you don’t… the penalties and interest start piling on. There are serious consequences for failing to file your taxes. At the most server level you could end up spending time as a guest of the penal system.

Why are the consequences so harsh? Easy if they don’t make it so tough… hordes of folks will “forget” to file their taxes.

Working in the tax industry I found it amusing how the tax season works. It starts in late January when people start getting their W2’s from their employers.

People who are due a tax refund rush in to get them done. They can’t get their money fast enough. It’s around 2-3 weeks of wall-to-wall customers.

Then the month of March… Crickets! The challenge during this time is trying to stay awake. I got an appreciation for how the Maytag repairman felt.

Starting in April the pace picks up. And as you get closer to the 15th it gets busier. The customer pace becomes more frantic as does the customers level of stress.

By the 15th some of these people are in a near panic… and most of the time it’s because of their own doing.

I’m amused by the fact that even with all the pain the IRS will impose for missing the filing deadline… people still push the envelope.

The marketing lesson is… no matter when you put a deadline on your offer people will wait till the last minute. You will have people that miss the deadline, and want special treatment.

Light Your Offer On Fire With A Deadline discusses more about why the IRS tax deadline is an awesome marketing lesson.

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Here are 5 blog posts I read this week that I enjoyed and provided some great information:

Are You A Prolific Product Developer?
Terry Dean lists 7 ways to create products. Writing an eBook is not the only way. Bookmark this one for future reference.

You’re Fired!
Robert Plank is a prolific product developer. He has already launched 24 products this year! This post is asking if you were we own employee running your online business, would you fire yourself? I have to admit I didn’t have to fire myself… but I did have to give myself a written warning.

How Not to Advertise
Ryan Healy got an email that tried to be clever, and it backfired. It didn’t even have a call to action?!? Wow!

Copywriting Q&A Answer Time
Stephen Dean answers the copywriting questions that people got to ask him in the comment section of his blog. He answered both of my questions. This post is loaded with good copywriting information.

Create Successful Business Procedures By Using Standardization
Richard Lee give some good advice about establishing systems in your business. He give a detailed layout of how to setup systems. Worth heading over there and checking it out.

Have a good weekend.

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