Well, I’d like to thank our clients for helping us grow, my team for putting in the time, and our contractors for filling out our needs.

An update is coming soon!

Zig fell a while ago and has some balance and short term memory loss. He did not let this slow him down though.

Learning…he always learns and tries to learn…described his time in the car listening to other speakers.

You can get whatever you want in life as long as you spend time helping others get what they want.

When he was in school, he did not excel. He passed though. Never read a novel. He founded a center for ethical leadership.

His first job was in Fifth Grade at a grocery. His boss did not allow him to speak with any grammatical errors.

Learned you cannot make a good deal with a bad person.

He never worries. Its interest paid before its due. Always tell the truth and do the right thing and you don’t have to worry.

Funny one: “Read the Bible and newspaper every day so he knows what both sides are up to”

He and his daughter look at his recent injury and decided to write about it. Its a great way to make the most of the problem. His daughter reminded him about the things he repeated (due to the memory loss). He’s very good natured about the problem and I hope we all have the kind of support he does.

The next one (date, time, place: TBA) will be about Lead Generation and how you can increase your lead gen efforts using the web – from useful web sites to ideas that will bring visitors to your site (sometimes called linkbait).

You’ll leave with examples of great online campaigns, how to use systems to manage leads, ideas for your organization, and a link to an additional training video on this site. The video walks you through some common CRM and lead management systems and provides a checklist for updating contact info when someone changes their address, position, e-mail, and more. It’ll show how these systems link with common e-mail systems so your time involved managing all this data is minimized.

If you have any special requests for this presentation, send them in!

After the next session, we’ll hold other events. These are the target months (time and location TBA)

May: Building Your E-mail Newsletter

June: Building your Social Media Profiles and How to Manage Them

August: Building and Managing Your Online Advertising

Sept: Web Site Makeover

Oct: Using Online Videos to Promote Your Company

Nov: E-Commerce for your site: how to choose a system, configure it, and manage online sales

These are hands on “how to” events and I’ll lead the attendees through the set-up of tools online. You’ll will leave knowing you have started the process and a checklist of what to do next. The sessions could be up to two hours long. Other folks will be involved and the sessions are discussions and not lectures. So come ready to participate!

If you have other ideas for topics, let me know.

There were new discoveries and lots of ideas. A great year in all.

The Dotson family had a few changes and great times.

Nash is following in my footsteps with his rice at a Japanese restaurant

and golf.

My brother and I went to a great concert.

The Pool at Andover was fun.

My family welcomed a new addition, Parker, in July. And, since his b-day is July 1, I know I can remember it easily!

We added another one in August – different kind of baby though.

(Of course there are lots of other pics – we’re considering buying stock in Seagate – but I’ll leave those for another time.)

Thanks to my wonderful wife, Jen, for making our house a home and being a great mom to the boys. She’s the queen of holiday fun – as you can see by our Halloween face painting:

Thanks to everyone who helped me in 2008:

John and Bill – the credit card wizards

Russ and everyone at HEA

Julie and everyone at Ventas

John Lee, Perry Hoffman, and Tucker Oldham

Chris and the Pattco team

Nick Huhn, Scott Clark, Jason Falls

David Caldwell and Brittney Edwards of the Lexington Ad Club

Jim Host (great advice)

Scott Williams at Morgan Stanley

Nick Rice – the marketing expert, John Meyers – a great small biz attorney and consultant, Kent Howell – the sales consultant, and Chris Powell – who knows how to treat your employees (and needs to get his web site up!)

Brian and the guys at Sfenity/Apax

The WebMedley Team and all our clients across the US

Vladimir and friends at IUCN

Kirk at Cardinal Office Products

Lou Allegra and the Vistage Lexington members

Tom Nickell and the former staff at Lightworks

Sean Massey

Joanna Betlej at eAnkaDesign

Grant Friedman at ColorBurned

Bev Hagan and the Fifth-Third Hamburg team

What’s in Store for 2009?

Hard work, lots of fun, and more pictures: a christening, Seabrook, the Dominican Republic or Jamaica, the Derby Ball, a few birthdays (we’re up to 5 in the family now), golf lessons, growing our web hosting business, and remembering to enjoy life as we live it.

The video from the event is online. I recorded another one if you’d like to get the highlights or see the screens a bit better than the Commerce Lexington video.

Since I did not give away the Microsoft goodies at the event, the first three people to contact me will receive them. Its Vista Ultimate and two XBox games. One for each of you.

The session went very well and feedback was good. If you’d like a private session for you or your organization, please let me know. The presentation and one on one time is very valuable if its isolated to just one organization.

Outlook can be tricky so I am posting the list of Outlook 2007 Training topics (PDF) again today for reference.

I’m reviewing Xobni and the LinkedIn toolbar — both are excellent for people who network for a living.

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Update after the event: The video from the event is online. I recorded another one if you’d like to get the highlights or see the screens a bit better than the CommerceLexington video.

Outsourcing has been going on for a long, long time. It’s not just a US phenomenon and its an important factor of our global economic growth and improving the world.

For those who believe everything should be made and serviced in their own country…well, unless you are from southeast Asia, you’d better be prepared to be naked a lot. Oh, don’t drive, take medicine, etc…It’s nearly impossible to live without participating in outsourcing.

First, a few reasons why I outsource.

1. I believe in doing what I do best and letting others do the rest. (See the Four Hour Workweek for another person who believes the same.) My own skills are with people and organization of processes/resources. So this is what I do. All of the graphics, software, taxes, etc go to another person or company.
2. When I outsource overseas, I’m able to gain financially through arbitrage while helping those in other areas grow their business. Sure, the dollar is low compared to the Euro, but its still stronger than the currencies where I outsource. This allows me to buy at one price and resell at a higher price. All of this while still providing a service/product to clients within their budget and the dollarized value of the solution.
3. Outsourcing helps other companies grow. This is very true overseas. In the past five years, I’ve been able to help other companies grow (people and revenue) and gain other clients.
4. The educational experience. Others learn about my business and I get to learn about theirs. If multiple nations are involved, then there’s even more learning. My clients get to learn about it, too.
5. It saves me time. Time is precious. Outsourcing is one of the tools I use to control my lifestyle. Unless I have client meetings, I can work almost whenever and wherever I want. For a person with a lot going on and a growing family, this is important.

Summing up the why: the benefits of outsourcing help me achieve the lifestyle my wife and I want.

Some people outsource part of their personal lives to overseas folks. Although I’m sure some activities could be performed quite well, I have not ventured into this area yet.

That’s all for now. The bulk of the lessons learned will be in the next post.

But, I thought you guys should know about a few bands I’ve been listening to:

Sigur Ros – Icelandic rock – if you google them, they have amazing videos to go with their music. Hljómalind is my favorite.

Jose Gonzales – Swedish folk – amazing semi-acoustics.

Children of Men Soundtrack – excellent

Shiny Toy Guns – We Are Pilots

Great music to listen to while working.

Our Ingram-Micro rep, Sara, gave me the idea so I cannot claim it as my own. The contest will have multiple winners and we give a hearty thank you to Cisco, Microsoft, and ASIGuardian for the support.

Spread the word! The info is online here.

Hourly pricing is bad. Tracking employee time by hours is bad, too, but that’s another discussion.

Here’s one reason why: no matter the service provided, the time required is just another item to track and is not indicative of the end result.

Example: if I tell a client I can move a pile of boxes from point A to point B in 10 hours for $100.00 total (or $10/hr), then my client will expect it to be done in 10 hours and to move the boxes.

If I finish early, the client may expect a discount. If I finish late, the client may fear an additional fee to compensate me for my time.

Counter example: I tell a client I’m going to move his boxes for $100.00. The client expects only that I move the boxes.

In the second example, I removed time from the business relationship and it only comes into play when we set on a start date and assuming I do not choose to finish at a later, unreasonable date.

So, the first reason is because we add an element to a business contract that has no value to the service provided.

The next reason is because time-based pricing does not account for value. Value is provided in many ways: doing something right the first time, providing long term value, educating others, etc…

Calculating value is tough sometimes. Buyers might not know how to quantify the dollar vale of a particular result. Organizations do not typically train people about how to dollarize issues. Without this info, sellers cannot help buyers figure out the value of the solution — not to mention the value of the seller’s specific additional value.

The exercise in dollarizing should be a part of every project before it begins. It’s the only way to figure out if a solution is more costly than the problem we’re trying to solve or the result we are trying to achieve.

We can all think of extreme examples: a Rolex watch. Does one really need to spend thousands on the ability to tell time? Wait! A Rolex does more than tell time. It’s a statement about one’s values and it communicates those values. To my father, it’s a waste of money, to one of my good friends, its worth more than the price he paid for it.

Finally, one should be paid what he/she is worth. I cannot really say what’s at the root of this issue better than the folks at VeraSage in their recent post. Self-esteem is an interesting factor. I agree with them wholeheartedly. Believe what you sell is worth what its really worth.

So combining the factors together: forget charging by the hour — charge for results. Set a base price for any service you perform no matter how small — so your value and experience is compensated. Base part of your fee on a portion of the dollarized value of the problem to solve or result to achieve.