2 years ago when I did this for the first time, I drug out all my DJ equipment and set up on the road between the high school and elementary. This is much, much better…I brought a microphone and my laptop and I get to sit in the media booth using the track’s sound system. I took the day off work to do this. It’s fun to watch how different ages of kids react to popular songs. It’s a beautiful day and it’s nice not to be in the office. It’s always good to take a day or two to do something different.

Growing up on the Howell Farm, my dad milked a cow for about 10 years (1984-1994 or so). The first cow was named ‘Daisy’. If I recall right, we started milking her because she lost a calf. The second cow was ‘Elsie’ and she was a cow much like the ‘Borden’s’ cow (crooked horns). My dad would milk the cow in the evening, put the milk in a tub and chill it overnight. Then he would get up in the morning and skim off the top layer of cream. We saved the cream until we had enough to churn it into butter. Sounds a bit Amish, but that’s how it was. My brother and I would take turns after school churning the butter in a ‘butter churner’ that was as old as the Amish.

So last night I poured a large glass of non-processed, straight from the utter milk and enjoyed drinking it down. Yum.

Now, let’s hope I don’t die from it. Not yet, at least :-)

http://www.sitaramuncie.com/

If you’re not afraid of something new in Muncie, try something from the Tandoori menu at Sitara.

Saturday – Around 3pm I loaded up the car with the DJ stuff and we were off to the Winchester Moose Lodge for Henry and Amy Branscum’s wedding reception. It took us about 30 minutes to set up. We started playing from a new playlist I have made for those with more of a country taste. It’s all the country love songs I have. It’s a nice mix, but I need to work on it a bit more. After we ate, we did the cake cutting and then the first dance. We also did the ‘dollar dance’. I can say we knew it wasn’t a dancing crowd, but we tried our best to get them out of their seats. We accomplished that in the last hour of the reception. I think people need about 2-3 beers to get into a dancing mood if they’re not dancers at heart. All in all, a good time was had by all.

Sunday – The kiddos came out around 10am. Holdie darted right for the XBOX to play Halo and poor Maddie was suffering from allergies and chilled out in her room. We went out and played some baseball until I hit Holdie with a wild pitch right on his knee bone. Ouch. He was done after that.

We went into Muncie for the Cornfed Derby Dames home opening bout at Gibson’s Skating Arena. Howell’s DJ Service is a proud sponsor this year and with sponsorship, we get a couple free tickets.

Here are some highlights I captured at the bout:

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://www.cornfeddd.com/
http://www.facebook.com/muncierollerderby

“I believe this is something very unique in Muncie and Howell’s DJ Service wanted to be a part of it”, Matt Howell commented recently about the sponsorship. “I hope everyone will buy a ticket and come out to Gibson’s Skating Arena and support this organization”, he went on to say.

The Cornfed Derby Dames will donate a portion of proceeds from all home bouts to organizations making a difference in the Muncie community.

For more information:
http://www.cornfeddd.com/
http://www.facebook.com/muncierollerderby

After the Art Institute, we walked and walked and walked to get to the Navy Pier. It was windy, cold and kinda miserable. Hindsight being 20/20, it would have been better to take a taxi. Anyway, we arrived and Holdie and Angie went on the Ferris Wheel there to see the view. Maddie and I went into the shops to check things out. We all met back up together and ate at the Italian Restaurant there at the Pier. Again, hindsight 20/20, we should have eaten someplace else. I’ve never paid so much for a bowl of not-so-good spaghetti. Once we got back to the hotel, we went swimming in the pool.

Friday – The first stop of the day was the Shedd Aquarium (after breakfast of Hot Chocolate and a Blueberry Muffin from the hotel lobby). We got there (after one of ‘those’ taxi rides where you think you’re going to die) and started standing in line. Well, it turns out that Good Friday is not the day to go to the Aquarium. Everyone in Chicago showed up. We stood in line for an hour, then they stopped selling tickets. Another hour goes by…two hotdogs and a Mt. Dew and we end up just inside the door. Then they stop selling tickets again. Finally, after waiting 3 hours, we get in. Maddie takes us to the whales, we hit a few other attractions and an hour later we’ve all had enough of the crowds.

Next up: 3pm pizza. I had asked one of the taxi drivers for the best Chicago-style pizza joints and he told me to go to Giordano’s (www.giordanos.com). We did. It was soooooo good. So cheesy. We all loved it.

From there, we decided to walk the Magnificent Mile. Maddie really liked the big city. I had told Holden to ‘be aware of his surroundings’ and look for pick-pockets and the such. He took me a bit literally and totally was aware at all times of his surroundings. Angie found that funny. We found the ‘American Girl’ store and went in for a quick look. We ended up in the Macy’s mall area for the next hour or so. We bought candy and moved on. We went into the Hershey’s store and got some chocolate then went across the street into the old water tower. We stopped in and picked up a couple souvenir shot glasses and were done with Chicago. We took a taxi back to the hotel, got in our car and took off for home.

One of the coolest sights on the way back was the full moon rising with the windmills in the foreground blinking in unison. Awesome sight to behold on I-65.

Professional blogging is different. That kind of blogging is even harder. It’s like working on a college paper. It has to be good and engaging. Truth be told, I’ve never been good at papers so that’s why I’ve always struggled with professional blogging. My advice, hire a good copywriter to write blogs for you.

All this to say, hey, I’m back blogging about MY life.

If, in fact, that thought has crossed your mind, you’re not alone. However, neglecting your marketing efforts is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an entrepreneur.

You may be concerned with hundreds of business ownership details, but you still need marketing to achieve the visibility you require to get noticed in the marketplace. This visibility leads to more prospects converted, to more customers converted, to more profits-which is the formula for staying in business. So, by deduction, entrepreneurs need marketing to stay in business.

In the world of marketing, there’s a general rule of thumb that 60 percent of your marketing should be spent on current and past customers. After all, they represent your best prospects. These people already know you, trust you and, hopefully, have confidence in your company, products and services. They’ve already had a good experience with your business, which increases the probability they’ll buy from you, especially when compared to a new prospect who doesn’t know you and hasn’t yet had a positive experience with you.

The remaining 40 percent of your marketing budget should be split up this way: 30 percent should be spent on prospects, and 10 percent should be spent universally. And all this spending should happen simultaneously: You need to keep your prospect funnel full while continuing to convert prospects into paying customers. You can start by using marketing to:

1. Replace former customers with new ones. Customers come and customers go. Sometimes they leave because of us, sometimes because of them and sometimes because of factors beyond the control of either. This can’t always be predicted or forecasted. To safeguard against this, you must use marketing to replace former customers with new ones. Obviously, not everyone you market to will become a customer. But to increase your chances of getting those all-important new customers, you must continually put your message in places where they’ll see it.

2. Pay attention to your customers. Imagine for a moment that you’ve secured new business from more customers than you ever dreamed. The good news is, you’ll be busy fulfilling their every need. The bad news is that lack of attention is the number-one reason customers abandon a business. So if you get busy, how can you stay in touch with your most valuable customers on a regular basis? The answer is marketing. Different marketing vehicles can reach out to them and show that you’re paying attention to them. You can send thank-you cards, special offers, tips and techniques, newsletters and more. The type of marketing activities let you stay in touch without being there in person.

3. Keep customers informed. Now let’s say that your business is growing, and you’ve decided to introduce new services and products. Who will buy them? Current customers will, as well as new ones-but they won’t buy unless they know about your new offerings. Product announcements, press releases, newsletter ads and advertising are just a few of the marketing vehicles that can be used to alert prospects and customers to your new products and services. Marketing once again saves the day, pays attention to your customers, informs and educates them, and causes them to eventually empty their wallets into yours.

Effective use of these marketing tactics will let you keep your marketing costs down while increasing your return on the dollars you do spend.

As a website publisher, RSS offers a way to publish information on many websites, which in turns increases your reach on the Internet and the amount of traffic you receive to your website. You also receive more one way links back to their web site. These benefits result in an increase in your search engine ranking.

As a website owner, RSS allows you to receive up-to-date links to information on a regular basis that runs on auto pilot.  When the publishing site is updated, your website is also updated. The result of this is that your website is updated more regularly which also increases search engine ranking.

The other benefit the website owner receives from using RSS is that their information remains “fresh” which encourages their visitors to return on a regular basis.

Finally, as a consumer, you can use feed readers to subscribe to website RSS feeds and put them all in one place. For example, you can use Google Reader or Bloglines to put all your website feeds there for easy consumption without having to go to each individual website every time.

It is worthwhile looking seriously at RSS technology as it is an impressive tool to use to significantly benefit you in your Internet marketing and website exposure.

A: That is a question that has been asked by every business person who has ever launched a website. If I build it, will they come?

For those of you who didn’t get the “Field of Dreams” reference, let me put it this way: No, if you build it they will not come, at least not without some effort on your part.

Assuming that a website will automatically attract customers is the single biggest mistake that many business owners make. It is this mistake that eventually leads them to dismiss their website as a failure and abandon their online efforts.

As website owners, we mistakenly think that all you have to do is throw up a website and that business will automatically double overnight. And when nothing happens we blame it on everything in the world but our own lack of marketing efforts.

If you build it, will they come? That depends totally on you.

When it comes to attracting customers, opening an online business (or an online branch of an existing business) is no different from opening a traditional brick and mortar shop. Without a little fanfare and a well-devised marketing plan, chances are your website will become just another spot of roadkill on the Internet.

The first step in devising your marketing plan is to ask yourself this question: Who is my customer? Who is it that I want to attract to my website? Believe it or not, this is a question many entrepreneurs fail to ask. The identity of your customer is incredibly important because if you don’t know who your customer is, how can you expect to market to them?

The next question concerns the locality of your customer. Do you want to attract a local or global clientele to your website? If the answer is local, then you will gear your marketing efforts toward customers in your own backyard, which means incorporating your website launch with your offline marketing efforts.

If the website is the online branch of a brick and mortar business, include the website URL in all your print materials and advertising campaigns. Consider running ads in the local paper, on radio or TV announcing the launch of your site. Use direct mail or in-store posters to announce the site launch to your existing customer base.

In short, keep doing what you’re doing to attract customers to your physical store, just add your website address to the mix.

Just remember, it’s important to consider your website a branch of your brick and mortar business because that’s exactly what it is. A good business website will help you sell more products, widen your range of clientele, and increase your revenue without adding overhead. Don’t sell your website short. Make it work for you.

If you are seeking a global audience, your marketing efforts will be quite different. Attracting customers from around the world is a more difficult task than attracting customers from around the block. Fortunately, the task is not impossible. The Internet has leveled the playing field in many ways. Now every business, no matter how large or small, has the ability to do business internationally.

In the most basic sense, an online marketing campaign to attract global customers should include the following efforts.

Register With Search Engines

It is said that 95% of search engine traffic comes from Google, Yahoo! and BING, so start there. It’s also important to realize that just registering with search engines does not guarantee you traffic, but it certainly can’t hurt.

Pay-Per-Click

The three most popular pay-for-placement programs are Google Adwords, Microsoft Advertising and Facebook Ads.  Visit their respective websites for details on these programs. Be prepared to spend several hundred dollars at a minimum to get your site listed.

Exchange Links With Similar Sites

One free – and potentially effective – way to drive customers to your website is through link exchanges with sites of similar interest. Locate sites that make a good match to your own and contact the owner to ask if they will link to your site in exchange for you linking to theirs. If you sell golf balls on your website, set up a link exchange with another website that sells golf clubs. You post a link to them and they post a link to you.

Go To Where The Customers Are

…or another way to say it, “Fish where the fish are”. Depending on your product or service, eBay may be your marketplace. Maybe Facebook, Twitter or Craigslist is for you. You may need to get listed in Angie’s List or use a coupon service. Knowing your customer and being where they are will be important to your success.

We have just scratched the surface, but hopefully this is enough to get you started. I wish I could tell you that attracting customers to your website is easy, but the truth is, it’s anything but. It takes hard work, creativity and above all, perseverance.