Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Give Them What They Want or Go Home

clip_image001

As an owner of a coworking space I’ve found it both entertaining and enlightening to talk with creative professionals around the world about how they work. My agenda was as simple as it was transparent; I wanted to know what people were after in a workspace away from home. Specifically what would make them ditch Starbucks or their living room and actually pay money to work somewhere when for all intensive purposes they could just work from either of the above places for free? Words were not minced, and the demand for this market has been crystal clear so far. People want the café culture with the privacy of an office. They want to step out of a private room they call an office and mingle with people, share the conference room, network, and so on. Equally important to them is the ability to slip back into that private office whenever they have a call to make, a chapter to write, or an urge to be alone.

There are many parallels I could draw of how coworkers are wanting both ying and yang out of a workspace, here is one that’s fresh on my mind this weekend.

Being in Orlando recently I couldn’t help but notice the gusty winds that only seem to blow this hard in Florida. In Columbia the winds are subtle, often making a meager attempt to push away stubborn bouts of humidity that aren’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon. On the contrary in Orlando the winds are filled with crisp streams of air that invite you to stand in them for awhile, and for lack of a better phrase, enjoy the breeze. So there I was last night in the pool-centered courtyard of my hotel dipping in the hot tub, moving towards the pool, then back to the hot tub every few minutes. What made each so refreshing was the existence of the other. The hot tub was nice because when I was too warm I could hop into the pool and cool off. Conversely, when the pool got icy I’d hop out and spend some more time in the hot tub. All the while the Florida breeze was there to remind me that life outside these water vessels wasn’t half bad either. Coworking, and the relative demand for offices is a lot like this trifecta of fun. You can fully enjoy one because the other isn’t far away. You can be chatty in the common area because just steps away is an office with a door on it, a door will help block out unwanted conversation when it’s time to get down to business.

Rather than push people into membership plans they don’t want, or in other words, be “right” about what was first anticipated as a good way to create a coworking space, I am determined to give people exactly what they’ve asked for.

As I see other coworkers and owners discussing the merits and perils of offering private offices in their spaces I can’t help but cringe a bit at their lack of ability to understand what’s in demand. People will tell you what they want, and a good business will listen intently and respond as close to instantly as possible. A bad business will try to force customers to do things they don’t want, which never works because, in the end, they’re paying you for what they are after. If they want hot and cold, public and private, or anything else, it is the duty of the business owner to give it to them. As these businesses continue to ignore this request from their clients I simply hope others won’t. Coworking is a great concept because it allows people to work more on their terms, but it can be stifling if the powers that be won’t let them have what they seek, as it was in the first place the point of this whole thing to begin with.

Postscript- What does this mean for Clark’s Office? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’m thinking along the lines of an open coffee shop up front and private offices in the back. For the several locations that I’ve currently been in talks with owners about opening I believe this hybrid model will also fit, if space is an issue look for a office-friendly coffee shop model to emerge. Either way, we’ll do our best to meet the need of those that sign the checks.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Authenticity Please

image

The mountains can’t hide who they are when the sun raises above them. They aren’t the beach, they aren’t a city, there is no way for them to disguise the bouldering truth, they are mountains. The trees that populate these hunks of stone are also caught red handed being trees. There is no question when the sun comes up a mountain looks like a mountain, a tree like a tree, and the beauty of nature is never really any more clear than at that very time. Coincidence perhaps that these gems of nature are at the finest of fine when light first exposes what they really are? I think not. Unfortunately people using the internet aren’t stuck in the ground waiting to be highlighted by a gorgeous sun every day, they can, and do work hard at convincing people they are something other than themselves.

As I’ve spent more and more time on social networks in the past year I’ve seen people I know, dare I say well, acting as if they’re somebody they are not. They’re not fooling me, but could they be fooling you? The beauty of the internet is that people are free to try anything they want, the danger of the internet is directly related to this principle as well.

Being authentic online will not only win you more readers to your blog, or followers on Twitter, but it’ll serve a larger purpose of creating true credibility for you and your business. Instead of pretending to be someone you’re not, which you probably aren’t as good as you think you are at to begin with, try being who you are in the real world when you go online. The more authentic you are the better you can expect your plans, goals and dreams to take shape.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

200th Blog Post

image

So Blogger tells me we’ve hit the big double century mark. The first iteration of this blog was a simple white template with an aerial view of a glass of Coke on the rocks with a headline that read Creative Journal. The header kind of felt right at the time, these small islands of ice floating in bubbly cola fighting to stay afloat. Four years later not much has changed.

We’re still fighting to stay afloat. With any business in any climate becoming a market leader is incredibly hard, and keeping that status is even harder. While we are still the leading SEO article writing company, press release writing company, and social media management company in the world, it hasn’t been easy.

As the business has matured I have started to wonder more and more if we are at a critical mass, have we done as much business as we can for a self funded private company like ours? Would the next step be to seek investors? The answers are not clear to me, but the questions seem to enter my mind on a daily basis.

Surely we’ll be involved in affordably helping businesses and authors gain more exposure online in some fashion.

What’s Next

Clark’s Office is now in full operation, and the feedback from it has been marvelous. People genuinely seem to like the design of the place, and it has an energy that is as positive as it is productive. We’re looking into building a larger executive office in the old kitchen of the building, more to come on this soon if it materializes.

Protect The Flame should be published next week. More to come on this as it comes out.

A bevy of new services will come out of our company in the next several months, including a long awaited web design and maintenance business, a suite of services handpicked for auto shop websites, and a play on social networking that allows people to connect without pretense. All and all it should be a good final month of the year.

Happy Thanksgiving to all that read this blog, you small but growing contingent are wonderful in your support of all that we do.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A Work of Summer

PTFcover

Let’s just say I had some time on my hands this summer. It wasn’t the best summer of my life, I was as antisocial as I’ve ever been, and most of my energy went into my work in some form or another. My way of dealing with loneliness is putting 200% into my work, and letting the feelings numb up until they disappear.

As a company we launched a few new websites, moved offices, and continued to grow. As an individual I spent much of the summer reflecting on the idea of success. What is success? How do you achieve it? Are you successful if you get what you want but lose other things you wanted more in the process?

Without having the answer to any of the questions listed above, I started to reflect on my on strategy on how to reach a seemingly impossible to achieve goal.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was a fairly straightforward game plan to making a dream a reality. Work hard, sacrifice things you enjoy for things you love, and then double up and work even harder. Ignore naysayers, and push past self defeating attitudes, and never quit, no matter what others tell you is possible in your own life.

Feeling like a walking talking cliché, I took a step back and wondered if there was a way to punch through all the overused self help jargon, and offer up real advice that actually could serve a person trying to reach something monumental in their life. Protect the Flame was born. A simple book that tackles a tough problem in society today, staying focused in the age of distraction.

I’ve included the back cover copy below, the book is set to go on sale in two weeks.

The ultimate paradox of living in the information age is that with all the wisdom made available to us, it is as hard to achieve a dream as ever before. Could simplicity, hard work, and detailed planning be the answer to achieving a lofty goal? Author Clark Covington thinks so, and in his new book, Protecting the Flame: A Practical Guide to Making Your Dreams Come True, he describes the same detailed game plan he has used to make dozens of his own far-fetched dreams a reality.

Learn the real secrets to achieving lifelong goals by subscribing to the simple methods of getting things done illustrated throughout this book. It explores everything from the importance of the 10 Commandants to why eating fajitas on Friday night can help your dreams come true. The book intricately weaves instructional advice with relevant anecdotes that are sure to entertain, enlighten, and, most important, educate. No other book will show you how to achieve your dreams in such a candid, down-to-earth style as this one. For every dreamer in the world, this is your handbook.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Thick Skin + Persistence = Results

If you want something bad enough, online or off, thick skin and persistence are the keys to making it a reality.

Period, the end.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Going Ga-Ga For Google

count_von_count-hp

I’ve taken the first step towards doing something I’ve known I would do for over a year now, taking yet another step towards being a total Google business. Our company already relies heavily on the tools Google has created to run each day. We use Google Docs to share information each day, we use Gmail as our primary email server for our entire office, we use Google AdWords to bring in a large portion of our business, and now we’re making the move to use Google Checkout as our sole payment processor online.

While I’ve had a love hate relationship with PayPal over the past decade that I’ve used them to make money online, it is fair to say they are the most advanced payment solution on the internet. However, they don’t own a massive search engine that has helped fund incredible innovations in everything from mobile phones to VOIP technology on the web. It is for this reason, among others, that our business is going to make the big switch.

We sell over 100 different services online, so changing the structure of how we accept payments is no easy task. It will take time, there will be snags, and it might take a few customers by surprise when it goes live, but in the end partnering with the largest, most influential search company on the web is not a choice, it is a must.

More to come on this as we get our sites converted…

Monday, November 2, 2009

Chapter Next

Lunch1MFA1B One of The Pictures Made For The Walls of Clark’s Office

Book Complete

Finally finished editing the manuscript of Protect The Flame: A Practical Guide to Making Your Dreams Come True. I’m really excited about this book coming out, it was by far the most fun to write out of any of the books I’ve penned thus far. Now I’ve got a few more weeks to wait while the real editor polishes it up, and the layout people work on the interior and cover design. Another exciting thing about this project is the fact that this book will be printed in Charleston, SC. My publisher is owned by Amazon, and they happen to base their operations out of Charleston, which is awesome. This will be my fourth book published in 2009.

Time Won’t Slow For Me

As Halloween came and went this weekend I was quickly reminded at just how fast time passes by when you’re as busy as I am. In a way I still feel like its spring and summer is just around the corner, probably because I spent the majority of my summer working, without much time spent away with family and friends. Hopefully this fall and winter will be more balanced than the summer.

Let’s Hang Out

Speaking of work life balance, there are a bunch of great opportunities to get involved and spend time with me if you live in the area. We have a double dose of fun each Friday when we as an office hold a free day of coffee, doughnuts, and coworking at our office on State St. In the afternoon we volunteer at local charities throughout the city of Columbia. You are cordially invited to both events any week you’d like to come. I’m also toying around with founding a new meetup group for the Columbia area focused on internet based businesses, and those wanting to start a business online. Just call 864-641-1856 for more details.

PR / SEO / Social Media Work

Our company is in the fortunate position of constantly needing help with our business projects. We run a less is more operation, by charging less than our competition and delivering more we seem to have a good reorder rate among our 4,000 plus client base. The residual effect of this business model is an ongoing slew of projects coming through our company. With our office now open we’re starting to do more outreach to try to place some of the jobs locally. They mostly revolve around writing in some fashion or another. If that’s your thing and you are looking for work, reach out and we’ll chat.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Best Bang for Your Buck Promo Package

So you want endless exposure on the internet, but right now money is tight. I understand, sincerely I do, and for you I've come up with an insanely value-packed package for you. It's our budget buster of the year.

You get-

  • 3 Articles Submitted to Ezine (Retail Value $60)
  • 3 Blog Posts Submitted To The Blog of Your Choice (You can sub this for articles if you wish) (Retail Value $60)
  • 10 Social Bookmarks and Digg and the Like (Retail Value $10)
  • 1 Post to Yahoo Answers with a Live Link to Your Site (Retail Value $20)
  • 10 Blog Comments on Relevant Industry Blogs (Retail Value $50)

Most Companies Would Charge $1,000

Our Normal Total Retail Value $200

Your Crazy Budget Buster Price $97

(That's over 50% off our already stupidly low prices)

SOLD OUT!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Mission Completed…Almost!

As my father often tells me, things always take longer than you expect them to, boy has that adage been the truth as of late. With over 90 days of work to get the first ever Coworking facility in the state of South Carolina opened up my instant gratification personality nearly became forever crushed. Thankfully the space is complete, and I can now go back to doing things that don’t take 3 months to launch like I’m used to.

For everything Clark’s Office check out these links-

Website- www.ClarksOffice.com

Facebook Fan Page- www.Facebook.com/Cowork

Twitter- www.Twitter.com/ClarksOffice

New Book Manuscript Complete

My 3rd book of 2009 is just about finished. I’ve got a few weeks of waiting while the editor makes my conversational writing technically acceptable, and the graphic design team lays out the pages, does the cover art, etc. With luck I’m shooting for an 11/14 release date, a few weeks past my Halloween goal, but close enough.

The book is titled Protect The Flame: A Practical Guide to Making Your Dreams Come True. As you might be thinking, the book is a self help style guide to getting more done in less time. This is my first non-fiction book that isn’t explicitly for the business reader, so I hope all will take some time to read it. I flesh out detailed strategies I’ve used to get more done, including how to leverage your current status to achieve success, how sleep helps people get what they want, and why positive thinking is more than clichéd overused guru jabber. I’ve also included a fair amount of stories that involve a lot of people in my life, so who knows, you might actually be in this book, and chances are you won’t know it unless you read it! ***Secret marketing ploy alert***

Classified Ad Submission Service

Back to business, for those small businesses looking for presence on the web, our classified ad writing and submission service is almost ready to launch. It’ll allow you to get your ad on the top 50 classified ad sites on the net for a reasonable price. Classified ad sites get an insane amount of traffic, and as I’ve learned over the years to ignore them as a marketing space is like tossing your iPhone in the toilet, not a good idea.

Expect a launch later this week for our Classified Ad Submission Service.

Focus Groups

I’m still fine tuning a focus group business solution for our customers, if you’re in the South Carolina region and are interested in being part of it, please reach out. One of our best clients is a usability consultant for some of the largest businesses on the web, and with his help we’re developing some insanely cool focus group packages for businesses, authors, and influencers that want unbiased advice on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to their website, product, or service. More to come on this soon…

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Clark’s Office Coworking Facility to Open 10/23/2009

SIDE 2

So it’s official, a date has been set for the opening of the project I’ve spent the better part of the summer working on, Clark’s Office. Our team is hard at work finishing off the construction, design, and membership materials in time to get this awesome place open. I think you’ll like it when you see it.

So what is Clark’s Office? It’s a place to cowork. What the heck does cowork mean? It’s a shared office space in a cafe style setting. Clark’s Office is ideally suited for independent creative professionals that are sick of going to Starbucks to do their daily work, yet don’t want to spend a ton of cash on renting an office space.

I’ll be releasing more info on the details of the membership options as they come out, but in a nutshell for a few hundred bucks a month you can have full access to an office that is incredibly cool, along with unlimited gourmet coffee, laser printer usage, super fast wifi, use of our graphic design suite, and so much more.

We’ll be having events there, and with membership you can too!

I’ll literally be working their most days as well (thus the name) which should make for some incredible networking opportunities. My staff is also based out of the office, so you’ll get a chance to pick their brains, and see if together we can’t help each other do better business.

If you’re a graphic designer, coder, writer, work at home anything, or just somebody that likes to do their work in inspiring places, this is something you’ll want to tour. We’ll be doing a Free Coffee Friday event most weeks to get people acquainted with the place.

Stay tuned for more info!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

New Lead Gen Service Input Request

Happy Saturday!

Between watching college football and taking your weekly trip to Home Depot you probably aren’t thinking too much about work today, but I wanted to send you a quick note to see if you have any feedback on a lead generation concept I’m working on.

Here is the gist of our new service-

We research your business, write a compelling ad, and submit it all over the web where people gather in hopes of helping you get more leads for your business.

An example of this would be us posting an ad to your local Craigslist on your behalf. Another would be us creating a local Google Profile for you. Anyways, you get the idea.

So here is what I’d like to know from you, are there any websites in particular you want us to include in this new all inclusive service? Anywhere you’ve had success online placing a free ad that you’d want a service like ours doing for you each month on an ongoing basis?

Email TalkToClark@gmail.com with any ideas, input, or websites you want us to include in this new service.

Thanks,

Clark

www.ClarkCovington.com

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Future of Video on The Web

Earlier today I posted a link to an old video episode from a series I filmed with a few friends this past spring, hard to believe it’s the first day of fall now. Anyways, besides time flying by, the big realization I’ve had recently is this, videos on the web are best hosted in a minimal environment with relevant content surrounding them. Since our Livin’ Venti site is no longer up, you’ll have to take my word for it that it closely resembled the site below.

image

Two Guys on Beer is a neat web show about, you guessed it, beer! The show revolves around the two co-hosts reviewing different brews. At last check it’s not wildly popular yet, but they have done something to legitimize a mainstream format for publishing video on the web. Besides our Livin’ Venti site that is no longer live, this is the only other site I’ve seen incorporate all that is important to making a viewer friendly video website.

If you plan on developing a video show for the web, I seriously urge you to take these design tips into consideration.

Major placement of the most recent episode-

As you can obviously see from the image above, the most recent episode is smack dab in the middle of where heat maps have shown our eyes gravitate first on a website. This makes it easy for people to quickly tune in, and get hooked.

Summary of recent episode-

To the right these two brew misters do a great job offering a synopsis of their show that can be read without leaving the page, which by this time is probably running the main video.

Easily accessible archive of episodes-

If you scroll down just a tad from the screenshot above you’d see this long list of past episodes, easy to click and dive on in.

image

Cool thematic logo-

Not only is the logo relevant, with bottle cap imagery and all, it’s done in tones and shades of black and brown that properly represent what these guys are all about. Would you watch a show about guys and beer if the logo was bright pink?

image

Quick way to find out about the show and hosts-

It doesn’t take much effort to find the About TGOB tab at the top of the page, many people will end up clicking this once they finish an episode, so it’s good to make this page easy to find.

Easy to spot social media links-

On the lower right hand side of the page this graphic lets us  connect via RSS, Twitter,and Facebook.

image If for no other reason this is an important way to give real time notice to  your audience when a new video is published on your site. It’s also a great way to solicit viewer questions for future episodes.

As I continue to launch new businesses the web video show is always on my mind, hopefully I’ll take my own advice when the big show idea hits, and I rush to the web to build my site.

Another note, all of this is easily done using the Wordpress platform, for more info on Wordpress visit: http://wordpress.org/

You can check out Two Guys on Beer at: http://twoguysonbeer.com/

We’re hiring an office assistant…

Hi,

We’re on the hunt for an office assistant / personal assistant for our public relations company. We are located in downtown West Columbia on State St, and are currently in the market for a part time employee. We’re thinking it will be 20 hours a week, the pay will be $8 per hour ($160 weekly) with opportunity for advancement.

Job duties include working with team members on new client projects, helping organize new teams to tackle client projects, working with local businesses to help ours expand, and so forth. You’ll also be part of our events, which includes everything from serving coffee to talking with potential clients.

Our office is located in an old coffee shop. We’re casually dressed most days, and the atmosphere is very upbeat. If you are interested in this job please reply to this email or call Jovan Washington at 864 641 1856.

If you want to see what we currently do you can check out www.ClarkCovington.com for some details about our company, and its owner.

Thanks,

Jovan Washington

Director of Special Operations

Rufus Space Industries, INC.

www.ClarkCovington.com

Monday, September 21, 2009

Coworking, New Book, New PR Site, and Affordable Focus Group Service Coming Soon

It’s been the summer of work, and hopefully fall will bring the fruits of all this labor to light. Here is what’s cooking inside Rufus Space Industries, INC.

Coworking- We’re about a month away from the opening of what should be the first coworking facility in South Carolina. It'll be called, Clark's Office, and is being themed after my ideal workspace. This café style office will be the perfect affordable alternative to renting office space at one of those dry ho-hum boring office buildings. Gourmet coffee brewed with the same professional equipment big coffee houses use, 11,000 channel satellite radio, comfortable furniture, and over 2,300 square feet of space to work in are just some of the reasons why you’ll want to check this thing out when it opens. If you don’t live in SC, but are interested in partnering on a coworking facility in your area shoot me an email- TalkToClark@gmail.com or call our office 864 641 1856. For more info on coworking check out http://coworking.pbworks.com/

New Book- The book is my first non-business nonfiction effort, it focuses largely on how to make your dreams come true through a method steeped in practicality and hard work. The book will serve as a clear cut guide to helping you reach your most lofty goals. The book is my response to people constantly asking me about how I was able to do what I've done, it'll hopefully be of assistance in helping dreamers make their goals happen. Publication date is set for November 1st stay tuned for more details, free chapters, and giveaways.

New PR Site- We’re redeveloping our industry-leading press release writing and distribution service. With a simple design, updated samples and packages, and a strong tie to our Social Media Management Service this site will knock your socks off if you are in the market for PR.

Affordable Focus Groups- You have an idea, a product or service, website or web app, and now you need to know if anyone would buy it, don’t trust your friends! They’re responses are shaped more by the fact that you are friends with them than their true feelings about whatever it is you are trying to sell. Instead let our new affordable focus group service offer you all the feedback you need from the most powerful demographic in the business, 18-35 year old males and females. We’ll videotape the whole thing so no matter where you are you can review the feedback, and even draft up follow up questions for the group. All this is done online for less than you’d pay for the plane ticket to even get to Columbia, SC to begin with. Coming later this fall.

Oh, and before I get back to finishing off all this stuff, I wanted to let you know we’re hiring. We’re looking for a part time office assistant / intern / good natured soul to help us with our daily duties around the office. The ability to write would be nice, so if you live in the area and need some work get in touch.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Social Media Mgt Press Release

South Carolina Entrepreneur Courts Big Business with New Social Media Management Service

West Columbia, South Carolina- With the explosive growth of social networks like Twitter and Facebook it was only a matter of time before public relations firms started offering services to help businesses gain better presence on these massively popular websites. One such firm, Social Media Management Service is doing just that by offering an industry first full package affordable Twitter and Facebook management program.

“Whenever you have something that becomes a phenomenon like Twitter and Facebook have as of late, you’re going to see a major demand for PR firms like ours to help people be a part of it,” explains Social Media Management Service owner Clark Covington.

Social Media Management Service offers a simple program that has peaked the interest of major corporations from a diverse range of industries.

“As soon as we launched our service a good portion of the type of leads we were getting were from major fortune 500 companies, billion dollar enterprises obviously wanted to get in on social networking and the service has been growing at a rocket’s pace ever since,” says Clark Covington.

Not everyone has bought into the social media management concept. Many critics believe that paying a third party to speak for a brand on networks like Twitter and Facebook is undermining the quality of the communication that company produces on such networks.

“We are very quick to point out our service is as much about becoming part of our client’s organization as possible. We spend a large amount of time getting to know the brand we represent, and take very serious our responsibilities to uphold that brand on such networks. In other words, we liken ourselves to a telecommuting staff member of the company we represent, rather than a third party contractor,” notes Clark Covington.

Each day Social Media Management service works on behalf of clients as diverse as private aviation brokers to major consumer product companies to produce meaningful dialogue on networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Setup as a single low monthly fee program that includes everything from profile setup to weekly reporting, the company has experienced rapid growth all the while operating out of one of the most dismal job markets in the country.

“Not only are we getting new clients all the time to sign on with us, more importantly we have had a very low dropout rate, essentially 9 out of 10 companies that sign up with us have stayed on board,” says Clark Covington.

The ultimate sign Social Media Management Service is doing alright might just be the fact that they’re hiring, something the state of South Carolina could use more of.

For more information on Social Media Management Service visit http://www.socialmediamanagementservice.com/

For more information about the owner Clark Covington visit www.ClarkCovington.com

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Our Business Methodology

We put our client’s needs above our own. We take ownership of their problems, and work hard to help contribute to a manageable long term solution. We are upfront and frank with our clients, even when that won’t win us any popularity contests. We try our best to treat our clients as we’d like to be treated, following the Golden Rule that works so well in all aspects of life. When things go good for a client, while we celebrate their victory, we also stay focused on what surprises remain around the corner that could hamper their progress. In summary, we aim to work with our clients in a manner in which they return to us for all their needs in all our industry-leading categories from publicity to SEO to book marketing.

Friday, September 4, 2009

Labor Day? Thank God

For those of us lucky enough to have a job, Labor Day should serve as a humbling reminder of how fortunate we are. For those that are without work, I hope work finds you soon. When no opportunities seem to arise no matter how hard you look, create your own. The tools of production (computers, cameras, software, and the like) are as cheap as they've ever been, and the opportunities that exist today to meet a demand online are better than ever. Either way, job or not, thank God we've got another day to make something out of ourselves.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Email Promo for New LinkedIn and YouTube Social Media Management Service Modules

Hi,

As a perk of being on our email list you get prerelease announcements like this one from time to time. This week we are proud to announce we are offering LinkedIN and YouTube add-on modules to our social media management service regular package.

This means that you can now have us manage your LinkedIn account with daily updates, adding of professionals in  your field, joining of groups, updating of your status, all on a daily basis. After getting more involved in LinkedIn myself I've had several high quality leads that lead to deals, I believe the same is possible for you on a regular basis.

LinkedIn social media management is just $100 more for our subscribers to our regular Social Media Management Service.

YouTube, with all that it offers as far as tagging, commenting, linking, and sheer exposure is a great fit for an add on module as well. The real magic happens when we can integrate the videos we create for you into the regular Social Media Management Service package, so we end up sending out Tweets about your new videos, Facebook updates, etc. Each month we'll create and distribute 2 videos for you all over the net, as well as integrate them fully in your social network assets.

YouTube social media management is just $400 more for our subscribers to our regular Social Media Management Service.

If you haven't already, get started by signing up for our basic Social Media Management Service here-

http://www.socialmediamanagementservice.com/

If you've already signed up with our regular package just reply to this email for links to sign up to the LinkedIn and YouTube monthly modules to take your business to new heights.

Best,

Clark

http://www.socialmediamanagementservice.com/

864 641 1856

www.ClarkCovington.com

www.Twitter.com/ClarkCovington

Monday, August 31, 2009

3 Internet Business Principles

image

Doing business on the internet successfully is similar in many ways to doing business the old fashioned way. Many of the principles that make brick & mortar businesses successful help to create winners on the internet each day when it comes to new businesses turning a profit.

Spending a large amount of time the past four years building my business by working with other successful businesses online, some patterns of success start to emerge. Some trends start to seem evident to me, the businesses that seem to work are almost destined to, and the ones that flop, for the most part, seem that way from the start as well. Here are 3 quick and easy tips to avoiding failure when creating virtually any business online.

Sell Something Unique 

In the industry this is called the unique selling proposition, or USP for short, but to you it should be marching order number 1. Selling something unique is no longer  recommended, it's a must if you want to succeed online with a limited budget. Whatever you sell, it can be similar to other products or services online today, but it should answer that critical question, what makes your offer better than any other similar offer?

Sell Something People Already Want 

Find a crush of demand, and put your product or service front and center. It's as simple as that. If everyone is buying a Kindle e-book reader, sell them leather cases. If everyone is buying cheap sweaters for fall, then sell them the cheapest most comfortable sweaters you can find. By creating a business to meet an already salivating base of hungry customers, your chances of success skyrocket.

Marketing is Everything 

You could have the best product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you're doomed to fail. Countless businesses ignore marketing, or worse yet, think they can get by on word of mouth alone to make enough money to stay afloat. Don't be fooled, behind 99% of the profitable companies on the internet there is a solid marketing plan, trust me, we created a lot of them. Stay savvy on SEO, social media marketing techniques, and anything Google does for small business and you'll be a step ahead of the game.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

We’d Love to Tell The World About You

As an entrepreneur one of the most rewarding aspects of my job is working with so many likeminded people, and the incredible organizations they have worked so hard to create. As we near the 4,000 client mark, I have taken a bit of time to reflect on our business. I have always felt very close to many of our clients, as if they were the only ones our company worked with on a daily basis. As our company starts to gain more of a platform online, we want to share that visibility with you.

So here is the deal, if you’d like us to feature your business as a client spotlight on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, and occasional on this blog, let us know. Our director of special operations Jovan Washington typically writes up a client spotlight each day for me, and on occasion I’ll get in the game and brag on our clients online as well.

If you’re interested in being showcased by our company, please email me at TalkToClark@gmail.com with the below details:

Name of business:

What makes your business special:

URL:

Products or services you've ordered from us:

Contact person:

Anything else you want us to know:

We look forward to featuring your business in the near future!

Best,

image

One of my favorite online retailers Zappos.com is hiring. Check out details here- http://ping.fm/c7wb1

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Wondering what everyone is up to for Labor Day?

Monday, August 24, 2009

Looking For a Few Good Interns

So I had grandiose plans of having a contest to land us a few fantastic interns, then life got in the way. With all the other projects going on right now we're just seeking a few good interns to help us with our daily duties. If you know anyone in the Columbia, SC area or that is moving to Columbia, SC please share the link below with them.

http://www.jour.sc.edu/forms/Internships/search_detail.php?id=347

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Office Logo

Even my office has a logo-

 

CO1

Email Promo for Online Branding Service

Hi,

What's your online brand worth? Have you ever thought about it? What is your name worth, as in if you associate your name with something, what increased value if any would that product or service have? Coca Cola's brand is worth billions, Nike and Starbucks both have extremely valuable brands as well.

Think about it, if you see a grey and orange sneaker with no logo, what's it worth? Subjective answers are sure to follow, but I'm willing to bet if you toss a Nike logo on that shoe it instantly doubles in value. This is the value of a brand in action.

But these are companies, and you are a person, so how can this be applicable to you? Look at Donald Trump, Regis Philbin, Oprah, and for good measure take a peek at Lebron James and Emeril Lagasse. All of these people are name brands, and the same product-value-increases-when-they-slap-their-name-on-it equation applies as the sneaker example before. A few spices in a bottle are worth $1, toss Emeril's name on that bottle all the sudden it's worth $7.  But does the same apply for someone online, just starting out, or even if they’ve been in the game some years now but nobody knows who they are? I believe it does.

The internet is the great equalizer, it is the only place in the world where your brand can actually shine brighter than those that have spent so much time and money building brands offline. For example there are people on Twitter that have double the followers of a Coke or Nike. Search a phrase on Google and a small mom and pop business might very well outshine a company that made a 50 billion dollars last year in the search results.

The point of all this? The money and effort it takes to establish a brand can be well worth it when you look at the long term value of your brand. Just as you know that when you receive an email or offer from me it’s going to be reasonably priced, well detailed, and offered with excellent customer service, you can count on my brand being the reason that you were alerted to such facts.

So are you ready to build your brand? Are you ready to increase the value of the things you sell online by simply applying your name to them?

If so, please check out the link below. Our Guru Manufacture site takes the same game plan I used to build a million dollar brand online, and applies it to your situation, your niche, and your objectives to make you the go to person in your industry.

To sweeten the pot those that sign up for Guru Manufacture this week, by Friday at 11:59 pm EST, will get 8 FREE weeks of consulting one on one with me, and a FREE month of our acclaimed Social Media Management Service.

That's a $1,400 value totally FREE.

http://gurumanufacture.com/

All you need to do is sign up at the link below this week and you'll automatically get an email from me with the details about your freebies.

http://gurumanufacture.com/

You can check out what you get with your 1 month free of Social Media Management-

www.SocialMediaManagementService.com

You can check out what you get with your 8 weeks of free one on one consulting here-

www.AffordableConsultingServices.com

I can tell you building a brand online, with or without help is not easy, but its well worth it when you get your name synonymous with whatever it is you sell, amazing things start to happen.

To you doing something this week to make your name more noticeable online,

Clark Covington

www.Twitter.com/ClarkCovington

www.ClarkCovington.com

864-641-1856

http://gurumanufacture.com/

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Second Month: A Plan Killer

How do you measure progress nonetheless success when trying to build something online? Whether it is a collection of poetry, an online business venture, or just a log of your favorite web apps, how do you measure progress? This question has racked my brain personally for years as I ambitiously try to do a lot with a little. Here are some thoughts as to why measurement can help improve online success, and how one might go about doing it on a regular basis.

Facebook is Really Distracting

It’s tough enough to get something challenging done with no distractions, try doing it with Facebook, or Twitter, or worse yet, both of them in your face all day. The explosion in popularity of social networks has had the adverse effect of making things incredibly tough to get done online, these sites are hugely distracting, and my absence for some years on them has almost entirely been for this reason. I call them time killers, because they suck away valuable productive time by egging us in with their sweet-as-honey temptation to look at pictures of people you knew a decade ago swimming in France, or alarmingly enough, working at a job that might be one you once strived for. The temptation of these networks is so strong, that the sites often kill a productive day’s work without you even knowing it. The only hope you have of keeping a consistent track of your progress is to measure daily what you are doing, and react when the daily measurement is nothing more than writing that you did nothing that day, because Facebook provided you with a lot of profiles to snoop through.

Methodical Success

When I personally started to measure the sales my business brought in each day, I was able to create a goal that was within reason of our current daily sales. After the goal was achieved, it no longer became acceptable to constantly fall beneath that goal. In other words, by creating a way to measure daily sales, I was able to create a way to measure success, and when sales dropped, it was instantly associated with success dropping, thus I, and later my team, became compelled to fix it. Within a short period of time I created a goal ladder, a bunch of short goals grouped together that when achieved would lead to a massive improvement in business. Once the ladder had been climbed, and our top sales goals were being reached on most days, it was time to create a new one. In essence you can methodically build a profitable business by simply measuring how much money it makes each day, and then making adjustments accordingly to improve, or at least keep that number consistent. This method works great for dud businesses, because if you’re constantly recording $0 sales, or worse yet, losses, you’ll know it’s time to move on to something else. Numbers don’t lie.

When you start measuring on a daily basis you’re much more apt to react to negative trends. Just as if you were trying to lose weight, knowing when you’ve gained 5lbs in a day is a sure way to keep you eating a very light breakfast the next day.

“Action is the real measure of intelligence.”

-Napoleon Hill

As Hill points out, ideas and intentions are pretty much worthless when it comes to measurement. So it makes sense to start out by stating that we should measure our progress in actions taken, not ideas furthered, or conversations had, but real actionable steps achieved.

But How?

So if we know measurement is incredibly important, how, especially if your goals are more esoteric than making money or losing weight, do we accurately keep measurement of progress? My suggestion largely comes in the form of when, instead of what, I advise people to if at all possible create a form of measurement within the first month of starting whatever it is you want to measure.

The first month is when your vision or task is making a lot of sense. Fresh enthusiasm drives your daily labor towards the goal, and as much as you hate to admit it, you think whatever it is you’re doing really will get done even though most of those other things you’ve tried to do in the past haven’t. You’re doing great, and all will be accomplished soon. And then month 2 comes, you’re exhausted, the idea starts to seem a bit stale, and apathy sets in.

Should I continue? Shouldn’t I? Maybe take a break and come back to it?

Welcome to the project killer, month 2. There is no scientific data to back up this claim that I know of, but from sheer experience alone I can attest, month 2 is a project killer. I’ve started nearly a half dozen books that stalled after the first month, I’ve even thought of bundling them together in an anthology titled a dog with no tail. How many website concepts in the past 4 years alone have fizzled out in month 2, I’d say at least 50, maybe more. The point, from my experience at least, is to create an actionable measurement tool in month 1 and stick to it to properly avoid your project’s impending death in month 2.

A Crack at How to Measure

So how in the world do you really keep track of, say, a schedule for creating a photography book based on pictures you’ve taken with your XLR of the Northwest United States?

Checking off a list isn’t bad, neither is writing things down. Needless to say there are countless online applications to assist you in this as well. The key is to have your measurement tool directly in line with your daily activities. If you’re always on the go, then maybe it makes sense to keep a small pencil and half index card tucked in your wallet, so you can record on the go. Conversely, if you’re stuck at the computer all day, why not use a dedicated pad to record the data each day? Or if you are too digital to ever put a pen to pad these days, create a spreadsheet and email it to your webmail account, or share it on Google Docs so that you can access it from any computer.

Whatever measurement tool works best for you is the one you should use, just make sure it’s created soon, ideally in that first wave of enthusiasm when your project is just getting underway. Once the habit of recording information on a daily basis in it is formed, it’ll be tough to break.

A Few Personal Examples

The ultimate irony here is I’m not an organized person. My house is less than clean to put it kindly, and my life often seems to be a series of jumping form one pending issue to the next, rather than executing some masterful plan. With that noted, I do measure a lot each day, and from my experience these measurements have helped tremendously in both gauging business success and feeling like I’ve got at least some grip on things, here are few of my daily measurement routines.

Business sales and expenses- I use an accountant’s log book for recording sales, and a similar book for recording deductions on a daily basis. These books look like notebooks but have the boxes and lines to help you record financial data easily each day. You can get them at any office supply store.

Working out- A single sheet of yellow notepad paper is always on my refrigerator door, it simply requests a check mark for each day I workout during the week. By keeping it on the refrigerator I’m constantly reminded if I haven’t worked out enough for the week.

Things to do- I have both an offline version, which is typically a single sheet of paper organized by personal and business tasks. The online version can be found at www.RememberTheMilk.com which allows for my staff to contribute to my to-do list for business. It’s accessible via any computer with an internet connection and a web browser, as well as on my iPhone.

Business projects- I’ve got about a dozen accounts with Basecamp, the leading online project management software. Visit www.37Signals.com for more information. I’ve traded emails with the owner a few times, nice guy.

Engagements- It’s not just good enough to mark a calendar these days, in the world of ominous distractions, you need automated reminders. I use Google Calendar that my staff can contribute to, it also sends out two reminders each day of an appointment via email so you’re constantly nudged to make sure you make your appointments.

Writing- Large poster board makes the perfect in-your-face reminder that your book project is falling behind schedule. I typically stick the massive chapter outline on a wall in my living room so that, even when not in the office, I’m reminded of what needs to be done for whatever book I’m working on.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

SEOArticleSubmissions.com Case Study

 

Social Media Management Service.com Leaps to Page 1 on Google in 21 Days

I don’t just sell internet marketing and SEO services, I buy them from our company for my own sites as well. As many of you know, I’ve been promoting our Social Media Management Service a lot lately, in part because I believe it’s the future of internet marketing, and in part because I believe it helps with SEO and brand awareness. So to help push my site up the SEO ranks, I used our SEOArticleSubmissions.com service to get it onto page 1 on Google for our most competitive term that happens to have over a 100 million results in Google. With a single SEOArticleSubmissions.com order I was able to get to page 1 within 3 weeks.

This case study helps illustrate the power of our SEOArticleSubmissions.com service; I hope it convinces you to consider using the service soon!

Keyword attempting to rank for: Social Media Management

Results in Google for keyword: 123,000,000

Rank before writing and submitting 6 articles: Page 2 (21st Result Overall)

Rank after writing and submitting 6 articles: Page 1( 8th Rank Overall)

Net gain after 6 article submissions: 13 Spots in Google

Want to gain MAJOR SEO like I did? Sign up for our SEOArticleSubmissions.com service today by clicking HERE.

Before

clip_image002

After

clip_image004

Live article links-

Buzzle-

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/social-media-management-for-small-business-owners.html

GoArticles-

http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1786597

Articlesbase-

http://www.articlesbase.com/online-promotion-articles/what-not-to-do-on-social-media-websites-1063464.html

ArticleAlley-

http://www.articlealley.com/article_1006806_15.html

Ezinearticles-

http://ezinearticles.com/?Listening---The-Currency-of-Power-on-Social-Networks&id=2635776

Article Dashboard-

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Basic-Principles-of-Social-Media-Management-for-Business/1002812

Want to gain MAJOR SEO like I did? Sign up for our SEOArticleSubmissions.com service today by clicking HERE.

Monday, August 3, 2009

LinkedIn Wants To Be Twitter

It’s human nature, why wouldn’t you want to be as successful as Twitter if you design web apps for a living? The people at LinkedIn obviously do. While I was tinkering with my LinkedIn profile I noticed a strange request, LinkedIn wanted to know what I was doing, how odd, since Twitter asks nearly the same question anytime I visit their site.

image

What’s wrong with this? Nothing really, other than one person can only update so many social network profiles before their actual work comes calling. That’s why I recommend using ping.fm as a way to syndicate posts. At least that way when the newest website dujour asks you what you’re doing you can simply add it to your list of ping.fm syndicated sites and you’ll be all good.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

ESPN Web Ads Go Local

Earlier today while browsing the largest sports website on the internet, ESPN.com I noticed something new, a regional advertisement next to a video story. As seen here-

clip_image002

When I clicked the ad out of curiosity I was taken here-

clip_image004

So what’s the big deal? Well for one ESPN.com hasn’t used contextual regional image ads in the past, most likely sorted and published by a quick glimpse at the incoming IP address of the visitor’s ISP.

This minor change helps to illustrate how large websites are becoming more visitor focused with specially tailored advertisements. If I was logging on to the same page from say, New York City, I highly doubt an ad for the upcoming South Carolina Gamecocks football season ticket packages would appear? One thing is for sure, this will help advertisers reach their target audience, and should increase overall conversation rates compared to non-geotargeted web display ads.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The 1 Year and 9 Month Long SEO Project

Never give up, no matter what, if you want page one results, never give up. That has been my marching orders for the past year and 9 months while I pursued an aggressive SEO strategy to get my book marketing service to the top page of the most costly keyword term in the niche. Here is the story from start to finish, I hope it inspires you to stick to your SEO plan for as long as it takes to achieve the results you are after.

September 2007-

Realized there was a major void in affordable full package book marketing services. Sure you could pay your publisher outrageously high fees for a press release or a media kit, but nobody was bundling it all as a single package, and certainly not for the prices I wanted to charge. The custom book release concept was born.

October 2007-

After spending a few days at Starbucks writing what was basically a manifesto against overpriced under delivering publisher-based book marketing packages, the site CustomBookRelease.com was built.

November 2007-

After less than a month of analyzing pay per click traffic for high quality SEO keywords (yes, PPC is a great way to learn about good SEO terms to try to rank for organically) I realized the money keyword for my new service was the term book marketing. I acquired BookMarketing.net for $1,400 from an undisclosed source, making it on the list for the top five most expensive domain buys that week for .NET registrations. Moved the CustomBookRelease.com website to BookMarketing.net within days of purchasing the domain.

December 2008 – July 2009-

Marketed the site in a variety of ways, published articles, submitted to directories, swapped links, and did press releases to help boost the SEO value of BookMarketing.net

July 2009-

Started to notice an increase in both sales and leads for our BookMarketing.net service, decided to check the search results for our main term, book marketing, was surprised to learn our site is now page 1 rank 7 in Google.

It took over 20 months to get to page 1, but with something as hard to obtain as that, chances are with good maintenance and some fresh updating to the site it will stay there for a longtime to come.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Posting From Air

I'm posting to this blog from an iPhone in an airplane. The reach of technology still astounds me daily.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Email To Clients About Our Top Secret Stuff

Hi,

So you probably know we are the leading SEO article writing firm in the world, maybe you’re familiar with the fact we write more press releases than anybody else online, but are you aware of some of the behind the scenes stuff we do for our clients each month?

I didn’t think so, c’mon, have a peek, it’s actually pretty interesting some of the funky stuff we do.

Top secret projects are the norm for us around here, in fact I’d say a third or our business comes from unlisted services that people pay for through email and as far as the greater world would know, never were done by us to begin with. These are the like the ghost services to match the ghostwriter aspect of our business.

So in case you are in search of a provider for some of those things we do that we don’t yet have a website for selling it, I’ve listed a few of our more popular services below.

Landing pages-

I love writing landing page copy, its short, to the point, and often requires a creative approach to convince someone to do something they normally wouldn’t do in so few words. It’s a challenge for sure, but it’s fun, and we’ve done landing pages for everyone from web app developers to professional sports organizations. The price is typically in the $500 to $1,000 range depending on the project, so it’s about 60% cheaper than our full blown sales letter writing service.

Product descriptions-

For as little as $3 a pop we can create fresh SEO friendly product descriptions for your ecommerce website. We’ve done tens of thousands of them for everything from diet pills to radio controlled monster trucks.

Weekly submissions-

Some people want to crush their competition online, nothing personal I’m sure, but these people don’t play around, so for them we create custom weekly submission packages. We write the content, submit all over the place, and send them a weekly report with live links to their content. It’s amazing what can happen SEO wise when people have us submit every week for them.

Community population- 

Ok, this is just a fancy word for forum posting. We do forum posting for a few bucks a post, and have done it for many websites successfully. We offer both one-off boost packages, and ongoing maintenance packages to keep your forum chock full of users.

Large scale social media management-

Our most popular service of the year has to be our social media management program, it’s an industry first in many ways, but some people wanted to juice it up a few notches. Since we priced it so comparatively low to anything else that even monitored a social media account, some clients have requested major additions to their packages such as integrating YouTube videos, LinkedIn networking, social bookmarking, blog comments, and so on. We can scale this thing up to 20k a month, can you even imagine what that would look like?

White label affiliate sites-

Pay to be affiliates? Yep, some people with an existing customer or email list base of people our services would appeal to actually pay us big money to build their own robust websites with killer sales copy to get people to buy from them so they can then turnaround and buy from us, at a profit of course. Some affiliates make some very good money this way, and relatively speaking it’s cheaper than opening a McDonalds.

Consulting with sales letter packages-

At nearly 5 G’s our consulting plus sales letter retail price is not cheap, so when you do need both we try to knock off some of the price as a reward for signing up for these high ticket services. Inquire today about this with more info about what your needs are and we'll see what we can do.

Kitchen sink deals-

This is probably our most popular special request, the kitchen sink deal. Here we basically toss in a bunch of things our clients request into a single monthly package, send them a special link to sign up, send them a special link to fill out their various information, and get to work helping them build their business online. Not only can you save some cash with these deals, you also receive a more streamlined level of service since you aren’t forced to go to the various websites of ours to sign up each month.

Want to work with us on any of the above? Simply reply to this email with details about what you need and I’ll do my best to reply to you with a quote via email, info on turnaround time, and what all it would take to get the job done for you.

Oh yeah, do it soon, I’m off to San Juan this Saturday and if the place is as beautiful as people say it is, I just might toss my laptop in the ocean and stay there.

Cheers,

Clark

www.ClarkCovington.com

www.Twitter.com/ClarkCovington

Monday, July 20, 2009

How to Engage with Others on Social Media Websites

Clouds part as the heavenly father ordains social network websites like Twitter and Facebook saint like entities online. There is no way to dispute the facts, these websites are so popular they are inescapable for business owners that want to reach out to customers and potential customers online. How can you not use these websites in some fashion if they are on the tip of virtually everyone that uses a computer's tongue? The challenge then isn't convincing people to join these networks since they are already there, rather it's about appropriately engaging with them on websites such as Twitter and Facebook to get them to pay attention to you.

Read more HERE.

Writing Again

After what seemed like an endless amount of moving (both personal and professional) over the past 3 months, I've finally had time to start writing again. I'm working on a series of articles on social media do's and don'ts that I'll share here as they are published. I'm also working on the beginnings of my fourth non-fiction book, which should come together nicely once it's fully outlined.

For those writers out there, now is the time to get things done, as the fall seems to bring with it so many new distractions. At least that's what I keep telling myself these days.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Create Your Own Twitter Contest

I’m ready to give something away on Twitter, I just don’t know what yet. Got any ideas? If so, comment on this post below with your contest idea, if your idea is selected I’ll send you a autographed copy of my new book Strange Business, and a $50 Best Buy gift card.

So what should we giveaway? How should we do it? Remember, it’s got to include Twitter in some fashion. Comment away!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Back From The Beach

172

After a restful and productive week at the beach I’m back, and there is a lot of exciting things bubbling in the company pot right now.

Here are just a few things going on right now-

We’re moving into a new office space in the next 2 weeks, more info on that later, hopefully this will be the last move for while. There is some interesting options out there, so my goal of bringing this business more public could be reached in the near future.

New Twitter services, nobody can deny Twitter is an all out movement on the internet, and we are creating services at breakneck speed to help you get the most out of the service. Stay tuned for everything from a contest service that guarantees everyone wins, to a niche service for restaurateurs that want to harness social networks to promote what they’re cooking. Tasty!

Crowdsourced book revisions. I’ve been tinkering with this concept for a year now, and it’s almost ready to launch. For those that author books this service will change the way you get feedback from people on your work. I’ve already committed two of my upcoming titles to this method as a way to test it out, and all I can say is, wow. It’s coming soon.

Changes in our submission services. We’re going to adjust some of our article submission services to better suit our customer needs, this will count eliminating some services that people aren’t using, and juicing up others that have been very popular in recent years.

Affiliates, we’re working on it. We had an outstanding response to our call for affiliates a few weeks back, we’re sorting through all the information and working on developing a program now.

As the heat starts to really amp up in the month of July I feel like it’s energizing our business with productivity fueled innovation, I know a major breakthrough is in our near future, hopefully you’ll be there with us when it occurs.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Headed to St George Island

Leave it to me to mix business with pleasure on a holiday as widely celebrated as July 4th. I’ll be out of the office from 7/4 to 7/11 visiting what I hear to be the very pet friendly St George Island, Florida.

I actually own a site, St George Island Florida.org that gets some significant traffic, and as obvious by it’s appearance is in need of some serious fresh content.

I plan on taking a bunch of pictures and videos that I’ll share with you all on the SGI site. I hope everyone enjoys a thunderous 4th of July celebration, that is as safe as it is fun.

Map picture

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Westin WakeCup Single Serving Coffee Maker EIBOS

Our EIBOS item of the day you can’t buy, so it’s a pleasure only meant for the road, the Westin WakeCup.

This single serving coffee maker co-branded with Starbucks brews what seems to be Tassimo T-Disc of Starbucks coffee into a 12 oz cup. The coffee tastes almost as good as if you bought it from a Barista at a regular Starbucks, and the convenience is unmatched among coffee makers.

What makes this thing so exceptional is its low footprint, it can fit on a small tray easily, as well as its clean-free system that allows you to literally clean it in 10 seconds, simply unplug, toss out the disc, and you’re done.

I’m all about simplicity, and this one button machine is truly perfect for the internet marketer that chooses to consume copious amounts of caffeine on their own schedule, next time you are ready to build a website, visit a Westin for the evening, indulge in a WakeCup brewing experience, and next thing you know your website will be polished and ready to sell.

Friday, June 26, 2009

100th Facebook Fan to Win a Free Rockstar T-Shirt and Mini Messenger Bag

image

Be a fan, and help somebody look a little fresher this summer by telling your friends about the promotion. The 100th fan wins an amazing mini messenger bag and a tagless Internet Marketing Rockstar tee. Only 33 more people to go! Sign up to be a fan HERE.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Essential Internet Business Owner Stuff (EIBOS): STM Duplex

I’m starting a new series that I’ve been thinking about for some time now, called essential Internet Business Owner Stuff, EIBOS for short. As more people start living the lifestyle of an Internet company owner, or even team member, things change. Leather briefcases aren’t needed, nor are expensive suits. When you work online, you can really start buying things for function, colors you like, and even the cheap price. Rock a Wal-Mart laptop bag, it’s all good, wear some shoes from the thrift store, the coffee shop owner won’t kick you out. Basically in this world, your vibe is what you make of it, and EIBOS aims to help you get some ideas going towards making the most out of your day to day life as an Internet business person. I'll review stuff I own since I know those things well, bags, apparel, coffee mugs, flip flops, no comfortable thing is out of bounds in this series.

So first up is The Duplex, a laptop bag by the company STM. This bag not only has a fresh name, it’s got two components to help justify it. Most laptop bags are slim, think laptop sleeves, while most messenger bags aren’t padded, so it’s tough task to find a bag that can hold all your crap, and keep your $2,000 Macbook Pro safe. Welcome to The Duplex.

The Duplex offers a padded sleeve that comes out of the bag and works as a micro briefcase, it also fits snug in the bag when needed. The bag can fit 13 and 15 inch laptops, and I've squeezed a windscreen 15 incher in there a few times when traveling for work.

Another neat feature of this funky hybrid messenger laptop bag is the pivoting clips for the shoulder strap. Most straps get extended in different directions when you use them, this often causes the bag to sit uncomfortably on your side or back. With the STM Duplex a plastic pivoting clip on both ends of the shoulder strap curb this from happening, making even the wildest of bag swings a tangle-free experience.

Today these sturdy bags are 20% off, so go for it, I use mine all the time and love it.

Click the pic for a link to eBags. No I'm not an affiliate of them, just dig there efficient retailing of bags online.

STM Bags 13

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Looking for a Few Good Affiliates

I was wondering if you wanted to help me sell our low priced SEO / PUBLICITY / INTERNET MARKETING services for a share of the profits? The risk on your end is 0, and the reward can be pretty big, since our sites convert fairly well. With over 40 unique services on the web today we really do offer something for nearly anyone that is trying to get attention online.

It's never easy to sell anything, but it's easier to sell our stuff than most online, even our affiliate program is totally unique and personal.

In a nutshell we are after 20 qualified people to help promote what we do, and will be building them a custom website, creating tracking methods for them to keep up with sales, and helping train them in what we do.

Details

Your site will have a brief intro about your (our) services, and then links to each Buy Now page. On the Buy Now page you'll have specially custom coded PayPal buttons that track your sales.

We can also put your logo at the top of the site, or if you wish we'll just use your name and /or company name.

Your site will look something like this -

image

In Short

We are going to build custom websites for 20 people to help promote our services

We are only looking for people that have the ability to promote this regularly and are committed to a long term relationship

We don’t want people that just want to buy for themselves at a discount, as that’s not allowed

This can be a way you can make a lot of money each month and look smart in the process

Get Started

Please fill out my form.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Definitive Guide to Making Money Online With Your Writing Hits #1 on Amazon

I seriously dreamed about the day this book would be on page 1 when someone searched the term freelance writing. Doing a quick search this morning on Amazon.com I had to do a double take when my book was sitting at the top spot.

For those considering writing a book, use this as inspiration. The book had no big publishing house behind it, nor did it have any type of major marketing budget.

I know this isn’t the number 1 slot of all books, but I celebrate small victories, and this my friend is exactly that.

image

Friday, June 19, 2009

Strange Business TV Episode 4: Internet Business Money Saving Tips

Why pay for things your business needs when you can trade something that costs you little to no money for them? Learn how to save money on the one thing your business needs the most to survive, exposure, in this awesome SBTV episode.

Clark Covington also discusses the power of giving stuff away for free, and how restaurants bribe their customers with chocolate cake when things go wrong.

Get Strange Business HERE.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Best Footprint Online is Often The One Never Created

Working online these past few years almost exclusively has given me a great deal of experience in the power of online footprints. Those things you do online that others can see, which happens to be virtually anything you do online. Comment on a forum post, argue with someone over a Facebook page, or celebrate a birthday on Twitter, it all shows up if searched correctly. Good or bad, it all shows up, because Google has no conscience, no sense of right or wrong, it's a computer based algorithm, not exactly a set of warm open arms to fall into at night. Google is indifferent to your issues.

In Strange Business I write about the satellites that are always aware of where we are, and more importantly, what we are saying. While the Internet has the capability for being constantly aware of where we are on this earth through things like IP addresses, GPS locators, and our own admissions, that leaves us basically helpless in hiding ourselves for long, we do have a choice about what we say online.

Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. If you are attacked online, your gut reaction is to defend yourself, just as if you were attacked in your home, you'd grab the first thing you could to knock the intruder over the head. Should you not be reaching for the digital table lamp or the virtual gun in the lockbox when attacked online?

I argue no. In fact, the less you say sometimes the better the result. As you deal with issues over the years online like yours truly has, you realize that often keeping quiet is the best remedy to the problem at hand. I could go into a lengthy explanation of why this is the case, but I'd rather spare you the specifics, just apply your own circumstances to this theory and see if it doesn't end up making a whole bunch of sense.

Monday, June 15, 2009

This Saturday We Giveaway a Netbook

***UPDATE WE HAVE A WINNER***

After an eventful contest Leigh Webster won a brand new MSI Wind with her famous pekingese baby's butt tweet! Congrats Leigh!

Howdy,

So you want to win a brand new $350 netbook of your choice? The odds right now are pretty darn good, currently sitting at about 1 in 1,750 which isn't too bad at all.

All you have to do is RT follow @ClarkCovington to win a free netbook and use the word tomfoolery with the remaining characters that you've got. The more creative the better. The more you do it the more chances you have at winning. It's that simple!

We'll pick a winner this Saturday morning June 20th at 11 am EST. We will select a winner based on who used the word tomfoolery in the most clever / funny way.

Get started now! Go to Twitter and tweet away by following me www.Twitter.com/ClarkCovington and then tweeting about the contest!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Strange Business TV Episode 3: Bizarre Internet Marketing

Buying kidney stones for publicity? Streaking across a golf course? Learn how internet marketing has come a long way from the days of the banner ad. Clark Covington describes his theories on internet marketing, capturing leads, and office decor in this awesome edition of SBTV!

Coconut Records
http://www.myspace.com/coconutrecords

Carl's Jr.
http://mashable.com/2009/06/11/carls-jr-viral-ad/

Strange Business
http://www.strangebusinessbook.com/

Dirt
http://dirt.com/

Wes Donehue
http://wesleydonehue.com/

Golden Palace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenPalace.com

Springbok
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springbok_(antelope)

Monday, June 8, 2009

Social Media Management Service Launch

For months now I’ve been contemplating the question, how can my company help people in the social media space. I tweeted, friended, updated my status, and kept up with others. I even attended a few talks on the subject. What I learned was that listening is paramount on these networks. Listen, engage, and then, way down the line, when it’s apparent you care to give more than to receive, that’s when you ask for something. This is what I’ve learned.

What now? What next? What do you do with the knowledge that listening is the first step if your marketing on the internet. Well unless you have all day to play around on these networks, you best find someone to help you.

I’ve hired someone to help me listen, help me engage, and help me get more out of these tools each day. I encourage you to do the same. I’ve modeled this service after what our in house social media person does for me each day. Check out our Social Media Management Service for details.

image

Sunday, June 7, 2009

I Don’t Put Enough Pictures On My Posts

So here’s a recent one to make up for it. Me in NYC fully caffeinated.

001

Friday, June 5, 2009

Plan Ahead and Stick To It

Getting things done in a chaotic environment is never easy. We all tend to live and work in chaos, so this blog post is for pretty much anybody that has a goal to do anything in life.

Lately I’ve personally been extra busy, my normal routine of writing each morning, and working on marketing / support issues in the afternoon and evenings has been turned upside down to the point where it seems like all I’m doing these days is dealing with client support. The lesson that emerges from running a business like mine in times like these is the effectiveness of planning.

The artful organization and implementation of a simple, direct, straight forward plan can, and should not be underestimated. Use your notebook paper to write a plan, or draft up a formal plan MS Word, it doesn’t matter, as long as wherever you put your plan is somewhere you frequent often throughout the day.

The notion of not having enough time in the day is akin to saying there is not enough water in the river. There is an infinite amount of time for the things you want to get done, not need, but want to get done if you plan ahead before attempting to do them.

Here is the crux of this post, the one sentence if you had to stop multitasking while reading; here is what you need to know. Create a shortlist of things you want to do, budget an hour or two for them each day no matter how busy you are, and in a few weeks you’ll be able to accomplish your normal routine, as well as enjoy the satisfaction of finishing whatever you thought you were too busy to do to begin with.

Let’s say you want to write a book, but “have no time” to do it because your 9 am to 9 pm job is insanely busy, and after working 12 hours your mind is mush. Fair enough, that’s a tough circumstance. Here’s my proposal to getting the book accomplished in a month, yes, 1 month.

Start by getting up early, each day at say 6 am for the first week. Don’t do anything at that time other than work on staying awake, being productive, etc. After a week write out a rough outline of your book, see if you can come up with chapter titles. Keep it simple; make the book 20 chapters each 10 pages long.

As week 2 begins spend that time you are alone and awake from 6 am to 8 am attempting to write 1 chapter per day. Don’t worry if every day you aren’t completing the entire thing, there will be always a new day ahead to revise, edit, and add on to incomplete chapters.

If you’ve followed my plan above in just 20 days, roughly a month if you just work on business days, you’ll have a 200 page book written and finished, you’ll also have not missed any work, had to “squeeze” in time throughout your day, or anything else that people use as an excuse to not get things done. Is it easy? No, but it’s damn effective. Getting things done is all about planning ahead, and more importantly, sticking to that plan as if your life depended on it.