The next time a client tells me they’re not sure that blogging, social media marketing, and new media will work for their company, I want them to watch this video.

Bruce is not ashamed to stand in a booth at BlogWorldExpo and beg people to blog about him and his company. It apparently worked, because his booth was swarmed by people. In fact, I’m extremely proud to say that just as I was putting away my own video equipment form this interview, the anchorman from the local newscast in Las Vegas dropped in the booth to beg for a short interview. (Gee, did I get in before you guys? Awww, that’s too bad.)

What I was late on was finding out about the concrete company’s product, because it might have save me about 10k on the construction of my new house. Oh well: next time.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (16.0MB)

Well, it’s a day of combined impressions. Firstly, this show is not nearly as big as I had anticipated. But secondly, it’s more meaningful for me than I had ever imagined.

Frankly, I can’t understand why a topic with an obvious application to almost every business on the planet can only book 62 booths into a trade show. However, the conference schedule and speaker roundup is 29 pages of the show schedule booklet. The sessions were what seemed to be more valuable to most of the attendees, including myself.

Of the three sessions that I attended today, the most valuable was the “Making Money with with Podcasts” session, which was a panel discussion with three hosts including JB Glossinger of MorningCoach.com.

Glossinger has much in common with my own finance guru, Mr. H, who is constantly telling me to “…just get it done now – stop thinking so hard.” Glossinger truthfully introduced himself as “different” after hearing the other two panelists speak about their own success by explaining that he’s “…not a marketing expert…”, nor does he want to “…make you think I know everything about business…” But, he’s got a very clear understanding of two key areas of online business: speed and guts.

In the early days of his business, Glossinger knew that he wasn’t doing everything right, but he knew that podcasting was a great vehicle, and that he needed to just keep doing it to gain an audience. He knew that he had to be consistent in his offerings, and he knew that he had to keep his promise to delivery a 15-minute daily morning podcast. When he started, nobody knew who he was, but he had the guts to keep going. Now, he’s a well-known speaker and trainer in not only the field of personal coaching, but also in the field of online business. He’s a bit confrontational, and I just loved that.

What’s equally interesting about Glossinger is that his income model is not based on what seems to feed most podcasters, which is banner ads, ClickBank, and (low-)paying content creation. Instead, Glossinger uses his free podcasts to build his profile, build his traffic and subscriber base, sell items off his site, increase his bookings for speaking, and fill his classes with people who already understand what they are there to learn. Yup, I’m on my way there.

More updates tomorrow, Sunday evening, plus some video that I shot today and will add to tomorrow.

Thanks to the very kind staff at the Southwest Medical Urgent Care Dept in Las Vegas Nevada, who had a certain anxiety-ridden blogger walk in this afternoon with the end of her thumb in a sandwich bag. Despite my humiliating panic attack, they kindly offered me several delightful injections while I bled all over their exam table.

No, the end of my thumb could not be re-attached. But I was reassured by the knowledge that an artificial nail would disguise it, if I feel the need in future. All I know is, I left with a very effective prescription.

Thanks very much to Dr. Brian Wittenberg and the very skilled nurse who cleaned me up and offered me a shot in my rear, which I declined. (But again, thanks.) I regret that I was too out of it to catch your name, but just know that good karma is coming your way.

Now all I need to worry about it how I’m going to hit the space bar for a few weeks…

I’m going to be out of my regular office from Tuesday, September 9th, through about November 10th, 2008. All of my regular phone numbers, email addresses, and instant message contact info will still work, but you may find that you will be asked to leave voice mail more often than reaching me in person.

Where am I going, you ask? I’ll be in Langley, BC until September 14th, and then on a working sabbatical in Las Vegas Nevada (not a vacation – I swear), with some side trips to visit family in SoCal. Don’t worry – all my regular clients will still be hearing from me regularly as per our appointments previously scheduled.

The most exciting part of this trip is that I’m going to have an opportunity to break out of some stale routines, refresh my own writing, and inject some energy into ongoing projects. All of this involves stuff that will benefit all my current and future clients and projects. I’m especially looking forward to attending BlogWorldExpo 2008 in Las Vegas, from September 19th to 21st. I promise to make some video podcasts from the show, so watch this space for interesting stuff!

Branding means that you are consistent enough in your offerings so that clients (my fancy word for customers that come back) know what to expect when they walk in the door. If you want to be known for doing something specific really well, and it’s something you’re good at easily explaining and demonstrating to new customers, you’ve got branding nailed. Or perhaps not.

Being incredibly sick while in Vegas last week, I found Palio, a delightful coffee shop in the Bellagio hotel on the strip, where they serve all sorts of lovely hot (and cold) beverages that have booze in them – oh glory! – including my cure-all, Blueberry Tea. (Regular tea with a shot of amaretto plus Grand Marnier – tastes like hot blueberry.)

Personality and atmosphere go a long way towards recovery, and I found this Tyrolian nachtmare overflowing with both. Overly-cutesy Germanic interior design choices somehow made sense in that town. When I first visited on the Saturday afternoon, I was treated very well by the attentive staff, served efficiently, and watched the employees clean almost incessantly while I sipped in the corner. Same goes for later that same day, and again on Sunday. It was a relief just to walk in the door.

Monday, however, was an entirely different story. I was leaving the following day, and I dragged out an evening walk with my husband to get all the way down the strip to this same shop for one last soothing sip before leaving town. What an incredible waste of a great evening.

Instead of the familiar calm atmosphere with caring staff, I found bumbling untrained newbies with an attitude. The younger fellow that greeted me was pleasant enough, but within moments, I knew I wasn’t about to get the relief my throat so badly needed. He moved with a slowness that would rival a dead snail as he kept glancing up to read the menu on the wall, his only cue as to what to put in my drink. I pointed out the correct mug to use, for which he was grateful. I was giving him the rest of the recipe when the manager, Argumento, whirled in. It was all downhill from there.

None of what I had come to expect was being delivered: a badly-made drink with the wrong teabag left an ugly aftertaste that made my cough worse. (OK, not that I’m nutty enough to get hung up on such a thing, but Orange Pekoe is a type of black tea, you moron. It does not mean that the tea tastes like oranges or is orange flavoured. And when I have a freaking fever of over 102 is NOT the time I feel like giving you a freaking history lesson on what Orange Pekoe actually means. Trust me. You did it wrong, the drink sucked, I asked you to make it again so that it wouldn’t be offensive, and so that I could try to salvage what was left of a ruined evening. Don’t be an ass – just make another drink.) An argument with a frustrated customer is like throwing gasoline on a house fire: besides an exciting fireball, what good can possibly come of it?

So my last night in Vegas was ruined by failed branding, which was a direct result of what I perceived to be a training problem. An inexperienced manager is now (un-) training what would have been a perfectly trainable new staff person. The customer (me) is disillusioned. The other customers in the shop were shocked and disillusioned. The new staff person now has no understanding of what the company’s branding (and on a larger scale, the entire hotel’s branding) are about. He doesn’t know what the messaging of the company should be. Wonder how much that’s going to cost them at the end of the week, the month, and the year? Well, it will at least cost them my business. Any good bartender can make that drink.

I’ll sure miss the fake euro-atmosphere. The polyester flags had charm.

Why not be sick in Vegas? I went on this trip knowing that I was ill, but also knowing that being sick for a couple of days in the desert is still better than being sick in a rainforest. (Ie., home.) I was right.

Thanks to the encouragement of my collaborator, uh, I mean, friend Liz Gaige, I managed to struggle through. Several blueberry teas also helped. (More about those later.) Despite a fever that was high enough to actually cause me to hallucinate, I still managed to learn something about marketing and my business.

And yes, I admit that the loan of an extremely hot car in which to drive up and down the strip was what finally pulled me through. Many thanks to the steady hands of Liz who was the driver, unimpaired by Robitussin. Don’t worry Dale – we were very careful as we zig-zagged around the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

I will be in Las Vegas from this Friday, February 22nd, to the following Tuesday, February 26th. I will be videoblogging from that location, just so that it looks like I’m doing actual work.

Actually, I will be attending the Affiliate Marketing Summit, camera in-hand. I will be posting a report shortly after on this blog and two other as-yet undisclosed locations. (Oooooh – mysterious speculation about affiliate marketing. I’m in with the Big Boys now…)

In my recent research about overcoming writer’s block, I’ve found about 1000 ways that claim to help you overcome this sometimes long-term affliction. Some are cool, some are crazy, but most are just off-the-edge enough to work.

Here are some of my favourites;

1. Grandma Peggy gets first spot, as usual. Her axiom? “If you weren’t at least a little insecure, you wouldn’t be a real writer.” In other words, stop being moody and get busy.
2. Watch a movie. At the top of my pile for writer’s block is Get Shorty, starring John Travolta. What most people don’t know is that the movie was written by a friend of the real Chili Palmer, Elmore Leonard. The real Palmer has a small role in the film – and yeah, he’s smoky. Check out screen shot at right – Palmer is the younger fellow at the right elbow of actor Dennis Farina. (Another one of those actors I adore.)
3. Watch another movie. Another one of my icons, Mae West, is not just known as the Queen of Corsets, but also as the writer of a number of her own films, including the famous My Little Chickadee, with W.C. Fields. Whenever in Las Vegas, be sure to visit the Mae West bathroom in the NY,NY hotel on the strip. Gilded furniture, pink velvet upholstery, and marble everything. Talk about sanctuary.
4. Need a muse? Why not put Walt Disney’s severed head on your desk. No, it’s not messy: it’s wax. (But still creepy.)
5. Make up your own word, like Brandon Burt of the City Weekly . Of course, his was not in response to writer’s block, but to writers being blocked, aka the recent writer’s (WGA) strike in Hollywood.
6. Figure out what’s blocking you. This serious post by Jimmy of Cinemoose.com points at some clever ways to objectify your block and shoot it square in the eye.
7. Try a Mind Map. The University of British Columbia here in Vancouver, Canada, has a page about mind-mapping software. For a clear idea of how you can use mind-mapping, watch this YouTube video by marketing guru Ford Saeks.
8. Eat something bizarre. For example, Korean chicken in a cup. De-Lishus. Pepto on standby.
9. Visit your fave author. At right is a photo of my husband meeting his, Jack Whyte, author of the Templar Trilogy, among other things. Whyte gives incredible 60-minute talks in bookstores like Chapters, where he discusses gory details of daily life at the time of King Arthur.
10. Make something. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does have to be inspired by something positive – don’t make something with your anger. All you really need are popsicle sticks and empty mint tins. Sometimes making something more tangible can break negative cycles that happen in our own unreal inner world.

It seems to me that I heard somewhere a quote by Bruce Lee, and although I cannot find a link to it, I’m sure it was his, because it represents his philosophy of taking all the good things from various martial art styles and making them his own. The essence of the quote was this: that when one does not actively seek out other styles, or art, or work, and thinks only about their own styles, art, or work, they have nothing to prod their creativity. (Which becomes the block.) They eventually become a prisoner of their own ideas, and cannot move their brain in any new directions. So grab those boots and walk right out that door – if only to your regular coffee joint. Bring something to capture the ideas when they start to flow.