Working with my new client base of smaller businesses in Sarasota, I’ve been asked this question several times over the last few months. Blog or Website? I usually recommend a blog over a traditional html website in most cases, but it’s not for the reason you are probably thinking.

Most people associate a blog an unemployed person, sitting in their bathrobe, ranting about a particular topic. And I’m not saying that isn’t true. But that is also NOT at all what I am suggesting.

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Well Kids it’s been a while.   I’ve been working on getting EGI rocking in Sarasota.  Slow going, but making progress!  Until I get some new content up, check out the new Evil Genius Interactive commercial.  Hope you dig it!  Tell your friends!

I was talking to an old friend this morning (who happens to run a law firm now, go figure) about some stuff involving the new business I may launch.  In the course of my discussion with her, the conversation gravitated towards how she was looking to grow her own business and the issues that often come with that. 

And as I expected, her problem centered around one thing - finding good people. 

If there is one universal thing that plagues small businesses, that is it.  While working with IM guru Rich Schefren, I had the opportunity to survey literally thousands of small business owners, and employee issues always topped the charts.

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I’m sitting in Starbucks as I write this.  Not because I am particularly fond of their coffee, but because they   have internet access.  I’m back in Gainesville this sunny Thursday morning.   Unfortunately my house here no longer has  cable or internet.  Nor does it have a reliable phone, any computers set up, or food in the fridge or cabinets for that matter.  For someone like me, I might as well be back in the stone age. 

I drove up to put out some fires yesterday, and as I sit here, I’m in worse shape than I thought I was. What I thought would be a quick and easy solution has ended up being more complicated and costly than I had planned.  The fact that I now live 3 hours away just makes things exponentially more difficult.  I’ve basically wasted 2 days, have nothing to show for it, and all because of  the perils of getting things done when you are not there to take care of it personally. 

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This is the first article I am writing for EGTV from my new place in Sarasota.  Unfortunately, as I type, I am slouched over my Dell mini, lying in the sun, sans-pants (again) next to my pool.    It is unfortunate because the missus and I were supposed to go to the beach (a mere 5 minutes from my place) so I could have been writing this while leering creepily at teenage girls in skimpy bikinis - But alas, Nik is feeling under the weather, so I had to accept my loss and try to make due some way.  Life is hard. 

I have resumed work on a project with an old partner with the goal of spinning a new company with the same exact purpose as the company he is working for now.  The reason for doing it is simple. The consulting firm he works for now (from this point forward I will refer to them as SuckCorp) treats him and all other employees like shit, they treat their customers like shit, and since he runs the division, he has a pretty damn good idea how to do it better.

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• I’m over Twitter. Don’t get me wrong -  I still have it, I’m still collecting followers, and I still throw up a new tweet when I write an article.  But other than that, the twetals have fallen off the twose.

In case you live in a cave, or are my wife, Twitter is  “a  free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to other users - known as followers - who have subscribed to them.”

<– I KNEW Mr. Rogers was always after the Giant C*ck!

In noob terms, Twitter is like your Facebook status. Followers are kind of like your friends…but the ones you don’t really give a shit about or know personally.  Yeah, I mean the kid in high school in the cool crowd that picked on your when his friends were around but was nice to you when he was alone . Dick.

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Been a while. Miss me? Nah, me either. <hug> 

When it comes to business, I’m cool, collected, professional, prepared, and able to make tough decisions at the drop of a hat.  Of course I am wrong sometimes, but I’m right more often than not, and I always have a plan B in place should that happen.

But when it comes to my own life and my own businesses, I’m a bit more complex (I think that is the PC word substitution for F*d up).  I am interested in SOOOO many things, that choosing the “right” path is always very difficult for me.  Combine that with the fact that I am a born slacker, and often the wheels of progress are carved into a square.

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I’d like to introduce you to a buddy of mine who is going to be our first guest publisher.  His name is Chris Thompson and he is the COO of Invidia Group, a firm that specializes in online marketing and lead generation. 

<– Sadly, this is not him.  But can read his bio here. 

I recently sent him an email asking about HTML vs. TXT emails and some ideas for a new campaign that I am working on.  I used to do quite a bit of email marketing, but have been out of the loop for a while, so I wanted to know what has changed.  His response was so verbose and thorough that I decided to turn it into an article for the site.  No sense in me hoarding the info and not passing it on to you guys. [Read the rest of this entry...]

As promised, the guest editors are here! 

Our first post is going to be from Chris Thompson.  Chris and I worked together a while back with Rich Schefren, one of the big name IM gurus.  He was then the marketing director and responsible for organic traffic, CPC, CPA, and business development.  Like me, he has since moved on.  Unlike me, he is now a fancy-pants COO at the Invidia Group. 

Chris is the human equivalent to his dog, a giant bull mastiff.  He is physically huge (one of the few people that dwarf me), looks quite intimidating, but underneath is probably most likely to sit on your lap and lick your face - I personally had to swat him on the nose with a newspaper on more than one occasion. [Read the rest of this entry...]

I’m a marketing strategist. I can do execution, but it’s not as fun for me, and honestly, I’m not as good at it.  Lots of people like to hold marketers in higher regard if you are a strategy or “big picture” guy, but I don’t think that’s really fair.  Yes, strategy does take a bit more experience than execution, and most at some point were executionalists themselves, but I really don’t think one is any more important than the other.  

If you don’t have both types, your marketing still sucks, so it don’t really matter who does what. 

<– Photo: Bilk. Beer and Milk.  While most strategy problems are far more subtle, this product is proof that fantastic execution is useless without a good strategy… and also that Japanese people are just weird.) 

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