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BLOGGIN

As a business owner you have to make time to make sales calls, meet with clients, pay the bills, collect the bills, update your marketing plan, advertise, plan for the future and some how work in a little personal time and enjoyment.

I have always been a list writer and that is basically how my marketing plans are turned into action. I regularly take bits and pieces, one at a time and schedule time to do it.

Now in the age of blogging and making sure you are listed and represented on all the right internet connections, it can get rather hairy. As a matter of fact I have a friend who continually lets me know if I haven’t posted enough on My Space that month.

First you have to figure out which sites, networks and listings truly benefit your business. Then pick the top ten and figure out time you are going to update, blog or find someone else to help you get represented!

My top scheduling priorities are (my favorite membership boards) the DADBA bulletin board, TBA bulletin board, Facebooks, My Space, Merchant Circle, Linked In, Michigan Biz Hub Blog, My web site, My video blog and My E-news. 

About 10% of these, I schedule once a week with the goal to complete it within one hour. The others are scheduled monthly to complete within a certain time frame. If you don’t give it a cut off time some of these sites become obsessive!

Need some help with the all the sites that are out there? Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send my current listings. kane@marketinsights.us  Hope this can help you schedule your 2008 business “must-have updated” for marketing!

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights
www.marketinsights.us

100 Years In Iraq

Last month, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, a crowd member asked McCain about a Bush statement that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years. "Maybe 100," McCain replied. "As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day." Full Article At CNN Here

What is your comments?

            As much as it costs to run the air conditioner these days, why turn on the kitchen oven? We cook tender cuts of meat on the grill using it as a broiler, so why not use the backyard grill as an oven?

            When cooking less tender cuts such as roasts or poultry, try using indirect heat. By using one burner, left or right, and placing the food on the other side of the grill we turn the grill into an oven. If using a charcoal grill, we place the coals to one side and place the food on the opposite side. The food cooks evenly and produces a flavorful crust that people enjoy without the need for a sauce.

            Before we can use the grill as an oven, we need to get to know our grill a little better. Hopefully your grill has a thermometer on the cover, but how accurate is it, and does it measure the temperature where the food is? The difference between where the food is and where the thermometer probe is can be up to 100 degrees. If you don?t have a thermometer, get one! It doesn?t take much effort to drill a small hole in the cover and use a clothespin to hold a thermometer in place and you will save ten times the amount you paid by not overcooking your food.

            To get an accurate reading of the temperature where the food will be, pre heat your grill to high heat, place an inexpensive oven thermometer on the grid near the center and close the cover. Wait about ten minutes and record the temperature on the cover thermometer; this is your grills air temperature. Open the cover and record the temperature of the grid thermometer; this is your grills ?grid? temperature. The grid temperature is important because that is where your food will be cooked. Noting the difference in temperatures between the air temp and grid temp allows you to keep the cover closed while checking the grid temperature. For example, the grills air temp reads 300 therefore the grid temp is 400 (roasting temperature). Just like an oven, when the grill cover is opened the heat escapes and it takes 5-10 minutes to recover the heat lost.

Grill Roasted Chicken Thighs

            Season to taste one hour before cooking. Prepare grill for indirect heat, 350-400 degrees. Place thighs, skin side down on cool side of grill. Cover and maintain temperature for twenty minutes. Turn skin side up and cover for 20 minutes.  Turn skin side down for twenty more minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Allow to rest 10 minutes before serving.   

              Don?t forget that side dishes can also be prepared on the grill, too! I use the upper rack of my grill to hold a baking sheet full of frozen French fries during the last 20 or so minutes of cooking time. When dinner is served, try baking some cookies for dessert on the upper rack of your grill!

Opinions on Obama For Downriver, Good or Bad?

With the poor economy Michigan is experiencing, do you believe it is time for change? Do you believe that the possibility of President Obama is the change we need for Michigan?

Place your comments or send comments to blog@dadba.org

Comments

Linda: Personally I believe if you want change, YOU and I must do the changing. The president has very little power...he is a figurehead. Change begins with individuals, one step at a time.

Brian: I think I am beginning to agree with B.O. about change. The dems and repubs have been running things long enough. I am changing over to the Libertarians!

Annamarie: I agree with Linda... the President always seems to get the blame for everything going wrong... never recognized for what was done right. It's human nature (as it's called) to blame rather than build up. The President has no power - everything has to go thru Congress and the Senate... THOSE ARE THE GUYS WHO NEED TO BE CHANGED!

Tim: Something has to change not only in Michigan for for the entire nation - I don't know if one man (or woman) can do it - my hope is that changing parties will do the trick, When Clinton was in office thing were much better, sure he had some personal issues but over all times were good.

Mark: Can anyone name any of Obama's accomplishments? If you look at Obama's qualifications as if you were an employer looking at a candidate's qualifications and accomplishments, then Obama's resume would have been thrown out a long time ago. Maybe it is time for a 3rd party!

Sylvia: We do need changes which benefit small business. I have not heard Obama express WHAT he wants to change. This is a concern. Not all change is for the better!
He is about the most liberal of all the senators and as a conservative I would need to know what he stands for. Our best hope in finding out what it is he values is his voting record in the past.
Not real happy with our options this election. My vote was with Huckabee :)

Scott: Yes 3rd Party!!! Where Ross, or even better, how about Jesse the Body = ) He tells it like it is!!

Linda: You are right Sylvia. The Senate and House of Representatives are really the one whith the power. They need to put in more time and solve some major problems or get out of office.

Local Search Engine Optimization Works for Business!  Find new Customers!

Whether it's a big brand like Sony, an e-marketplace like Amazon and eBay or a local chocolatier's business, all of them have one thing in common today - the need for greater market share online. Until a few years ago, having a great website was thought to be an effective tool to market to online audiences. That myth was quickly broken when search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others became the new one-stop-shops for anything and everything a consumer was looking to find. From searching for information to making a travel reservation or simply just buying clothes, search engines became the starting point for all surfers, now more aptly called "searchers".

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-per-Click (PPC) have been the reigning buzz words of Internet Marketing in the last year or two. As a business owner, you have probably explored these for your online business as well, which is a great start. Getting your website to list on top positions in leading search engines is possibly the result of an SEO strategy working really well. Hundreds of clicks coming in to your specially designed landing page is perhaps the magic of a successful paid listing or sponsored link. The question is, how much of this is impacting your bottom-line through increased conversions and sales? If the impact is not visibly great, you are probably missing critical elements of your SEM strategy.

Define Marketing Objectives, Identify Missing Elements and Apply the Right SEM Mix

What is it that your business needs to market effectively online and enhance your revenues significantly? Maybe it's an interactive video. Could be an email marketing campaign and a monthly e-newsletter. A blog might be the one thing your business could really benefit from. How about an RSS Feed or a podcast? Whatever it is you are missing, your WSI Internet Marketing Consultant can help you analyze your business needs and guide you towards an appropriate SEM strategy. To help you move your e-business to the next level, WSI can provide you with a comprehensive mix of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) tools and techniques.

The Web is a Community

Before you buy a book online, you read reviews by people who have read it before you. Looking for a good hotel deal on your next vacation? The first thing you do is look up reviews by previous travelers. Searching for the best place to have your daughter's 10th birthday party, you visit a popular parenting blog. You want to stay on top of all the latest research about health and nutrition so you sign up for an RSS Feed to get relevant information in a timely manner. The podcast you received about tax tips for small business owners helped you optimize your tax benefits.

For all the claims of the Internet giving people independence and allowing individuals to be themselves, and so on, it goes without saying that the Worldwide Web is a community. Search Engine Marketing is about reaching out to this community and leveraging the power of word-of-mouth publicity. RSS Feeds, Podcasting and Blogs are some of the newest tools that you can use to reach out to your customers. Contact your WSI Internet Consultant today to find out how.

Article by: Dave Morrow
WSI E-Business Consultant
www.prowsiesolutions.com

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