The Internet and social media is definitely the Wild West.  Actually it is worse than the wild west.

You know what it reminds me of?

If I reflect back around 2004/2005 when I first started to attend Harry Brelsford’s SMB Nation at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA.  There was a buzz back then in the early talks about Managed IT Services that continues on today.  Should I be focused on managed services?  How do I do it?

Now for my friends outside the IT industry, managed services was a way to charge a business a flat rate for providing IT tech services instead of billing by the hour or selling a small business a retainer type of service and drawing down on that retainer.  Managed Services introduced new concepts and spun a whole new industry of companies selling products and services to those of us who provided the actually service.  Some did well, while some lost focus and actually suffered and if they just kept their original business plan instead of buying into the hype…perhaps would have done well.

The introduction of Managed Services caused a tremendous amount of chaos in the technology industry that continues today. Almost five years later there are still discussions on,  what tool do you use?  How do you do this? How do you do that?  These questions were the norm and my team at IT Matters, back in the day didn’t have everything nailed down tight (nor did we really care) with regards to managed services and we actually did a pretty poor job at it compared to others…but you know something, compared to others where it mattered the most, we were profitable and continued to inch closer to that $5M in sales number before my departure in late 2008.

Is Social Media and Internet Consulting going that way and should I take what I learned with IT Matters and apply it again?

I read a thread recently on the Social Media Today LinkedIn group that brought back the nightmares or memories of 2004/2005 SMB Nation events, depending on the way you look at things.  There is an ongoing debate on how much to charge (seen this with managed services) organizations for your services.  Discussions about tools to measure success (see them as well) and how to charge clients (been there, done that).  Plus, there are new organizations out there spinning up to sell tools, products and coach social media consultants on how to do their jobs better.

What are we doing at Ulistic?  What I have always done…focus on our clients and their needs first.

True, you can fix what you don’t measure.  But don’t we have tools already to measure success online.  I read an article by my friend Denise Deveau on Google Analytics and a flower shop in Toronto where this retail store in the GTA is using something as simple as a Google tool to measure the success of their business.  What can I share with my colleagues in the social media business…focus on the needs of your clients first (they are your oxygen mask) and then put on the mask of the person beside you (your business).  Use the tools out there but don’t get hung up on them and when you decide on one, stick with it.  The other big thing about Managed IT services is how easy people changed tools and services and dropped 50K.

Not sure, ask Varvid’s Aaron Booker from Bellingham, Washington. This Pacific Northwest technical guru recently packed in his MSP business in Bellingham to purely focus on what he loves to do..shoot video and work with people…almost similar to my story. Aaron now focuses on his passion of helping IT consultants, computer vendors and others in the technology industry tell their story through the lense of his Varvid business.  Learn about Aaron’s Social Media Video product at http://www.varvid.com.  We can’t forget about Drew and Mike as well…critically parts of the team.

What I truly admire about Aaron is his passion for being a Go-Giver.  This guy has the energy of an ox with endless amounts of energy, drive, determination and a heart of pure gold.  He never sleeps and the smile on his face proves it.

Aaron was a founding member of HTG3 with me back in November 2006.  I still remember meeting him and the rest in Council Bluffs, Iowa when I snuck away from IT Matters for a couple of days (Tony and Rob had no idea) to get involved with an organization that would eventually change my life and the way I see the world.

Aaron caught up with me this week in Dallas and shot some footage about Ulistic.  It was like we never missed a beat.

PS..Aaron it was great to get lost in Dallas with you on Tuesday.

If you have not read this book yet, stop reading this blog and run down to your nearest Chapters, Indigo or Borders store and get it.

I need to thank my good friend and fan of Ulistic, Dr. Leslie Roberts from GoForth Institute for recommending this book to me.  Thanks Leslie, you haven’t seen how much it has impacted my life yet.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing some key takeaways from Seth Godin “Tribes”. I have a few pages marked and ready for commentary.

First, if you have it, turn to page 96 and about half way down the page you will find this paragraph.

“The last person to leave the current record business won’t be the smartest, and he won’t be the most successful either.  Getting out first and staking out the new territory almost always pays off.”

Wow, is all I have to say.

Seth was speaking about the music business when he shared that small bit of inspiration, but I took as my departure after 15 years in the Calgary Small Business Computer Support market.  I haven’t been the last person to depart from something comfortable that put food on the table.  I had a chance to catch up with my great friend Aaron Booker from Bellingham, Washington last night and discuss his new business varvid.com.  Aaron is now servicing the technology community by providing high quality video production for conferences, trade shows and case studies.  He does some pretty awesome work.

Thanks Seth for that message.  It was really something I needed to hear and reinforced my knowing that David and I are on the right track with Ulistic.

Have you heard of Jeremy Epstein?  I don’t believe he is related to Juan Luis Pedro Philippo DeHuevos Epstein at all?  Actually this Epstein is a fictitious character.   Besides being a handsome man, Jeremy Epstein is a pretty savvy Marketer from the DC area.

Jeremy shared a very interesting story of link spam showing up in his blog the other day and where it came from and who was doing it.  A while back, I was getting a tonne of link spam as well when I installed the IntenseDebate Wordpress plugin.  Stay clear of this plugin all of you WordPress bloggers, total trash and full of spammers who surely increase your comment count but not in a good way.

Jeremy shared a story about four firms who are paying some SEO firm in North Carolina to do SEO work for them.  According to Jeremy’s blog post this SEO firm employs blog commenting and linking tactics aimed to get a higher number of inbound links to their client’s websites.  First off, what about the NOFOLLOW tag Google put in place a while back designed to combat this type of behaviour?  A good SEO firm would understand this loophole has been closed quite sometime ago and link comments don’t work anymore.

Jeremy shared the names of these four firms on his blog post. But I will say this.  There are some SEO firms out there who wound rather take their clients money and run.   I wonder if these four business are even aware that the behaviours of their SEO firm just got them blogged about by my Washington, DC friend.

Question…how do you know what your SEO firm is doing out there?  This is why we are teaching our clients how to do their Calgary SEO work and our approach of education will help your business stay clear of this sort of junk that happens out there.

Buyer beware comes to mind, how are you going to employ your next search engine optimization firm?

Read the complete post from Jeremy here.

Jeremy shared a very interesting story of link spam showing up in his blog the other day and where it came from and who was doing it.  A while back, I was getting a tonne of link spam as well when I installed the IntenseDebate Wordpress plugin.  Stay clear of this plugin all of you WordPress bloggers, total trash and full of spammers who surely increase your comment count but not in a good way.

Jeremy shared a story about four firms who are paying some SEO firm in North Carolina to do SEO work for them.  According to Jeremy’s blog post this SEO firm employs blog commenting and linking tactics aimed to get a higher number of inbound links to their client’s websites.  First off, what about the NOFOLLOW tag Google put in place a while back designed to combat this type of behaviour?  A good SEO firm would understand this loophole has been closed quite sometime ago and link comments don’t work anymore.

Jeremy shared the names of these four firms on his blog post. But I will say this.  There are some SEO firms out there who wound rather take their clients money and run.   I wonder if these four business are even aware that the behaviours of their SEO firm just got them blogged about by my Washington, DC friend.

Question…how do you know what your SEO firm is doing out there?  This is why we are teaching our clients how to do their Calgary SEO work and our approach of education will help your business stay clear of this sort of junk that happens out there.

Buyer beware comes to mind, how are you going to employ your next search engine optimization firm?

Read the complete post from Jeremy here.