My name is Joseph C. McDaniel, and I don't want you to need to file a bankruptcy for you personally, or for your business. I'll file a bankruptcy for you if you need one, because that's what I do, but I'd rather your business did well and you retired rich, without having to file a bankruptcy!
Now, this is a depression. One out of six of people with jobs call themselves "the working poor"; and a lot of people out there (it looks like around 20% to me, but that's an unscientific guesstimate) don't have jobs.
And that means that a lot more small businesses are going to be closing their doors, and many of those will file bankruptcy, and some won't even bother filing a business bankruptcy.
They'll just file a bankruptcy themselves, to deal with their personal guarantees.
But some businesses are still thriving.
While it doesn't seem fair, there are wonderful, well-run, efficient businesses out there that are going out of businesses, and their owners wonder why their business failed, and their competitor down the street is still running full blast, with customers hanging from the rafters!
Well, there's a reason, and it may not be what you think.
The reason that the competitor stayed open, and the competition didn't need to file a bankruptcy, is simple: buyers could find the competitor online when they searched for what they wanted to buy!
Note: there are two kinds of businesses right now: there are those that market effectively and economically on the Internet, and those that are going to file a bankruptcy, eventually.
And you get to decide which kind of business you want to own, simple as that.
Either the Quick, or the Dead.
Now, you may well ask who I am, and why you should bother to listen to a word I have to say? And that's a fair question, and more than fair.
There's a simple reason, and the most interesting man in the world said it in a Dos Equis Beer Commercial: "Some people know more than you. Listen to those people!"
And why am I so sure that I now have the Keys to the Kingdom of Internet Marketing on the Internet for My Favorite Price?
Because about two and a half years ago my biggest and richest client decided that it could live without me, after it had made me fat and happy and...well, soft, for the seven years before that.
If you're getting paid very well, and you have one giant client that loves you, you don't need to market on the Internet!
Until that client decides it doesn't need you anymore.
Gasp. Choke. Gurgle.
Now, I'm a bankruptcy lawyer, and I have been all my adult life.
So I wasn't really worried. I knew a lot of lawyers to whom I had referred much business over the years, and I had a lot of nifty credentials, and I'd been Chairman of Everything.
So I was going to get plenty of business, right?
Well, no. Wrong. Because seven years is a long time in lawyer-gratitude years. The guys I'd referred cases long ago hardly remembered my name.
But I still had kids in school, and a mortgage to pay, and groceries to buy.
So I needed to learn how to market on the Internet.
Fast.
And for My Favorite Price.
And as I was sitting around, despondent, listing to my phone not ringing, my office was contacted by a guy who has become a good friend: Alex Morris, my Findlaw Representative.
And he wanted to take me to lunch to sell me Internet Advertising with Findlaw, a directory for lawyers.
And I told him that I hated advertising salesmen, because I'd paid one of his competitors about fifty thousand dollars five years ago, so they would develop a website, banner, and directory entry for me on their website.
And you know how many clients I got from my gigantic investment with that lawyer directory?
Yeah, you know where I'm going; and I told him that I hated online advertising salesmen.
Instead of being offended, he gave me a two hour seminar at lunch about everything I could do on the Internet to educate the public, as well as letting them know that I was still practicing bankruptcy law, and that I was a pretty darn experienced Arizona bankruptcy attorney.
For My Favorite Price.
Free.
And it took a lot of work, but I did it, and it worked.
Beyond my wildest dreams.
Today, for instance, here's my Martindale Visibility Profile (which goes up and comes down, from day to day):
Profile Visibility
#4 in weekly profile views out of 5,856 lawyers in Phoenix, Arizona
#190 in weekly profile views out of 1,008,836 total lawyers Overall
The last time I hit #2 in weekly profile views, I gave Alex trouble because I wasn't #1; he pointed out that #2 wasn't all that bad for somebody who had been invisible on the Internet two years earlier. With no advertising budget. Who wasn't very photogenic.
And I had to agree!
And #190 in a field of more than a million lawyers is also not perfect, but it's a pretty good start!
As time moved forward, I did buy some online advertising from Alex, with Findlaw, and it has been very effective indeed.
And I've also found some other friends who teach lawyer marketing, and I've learned a lot from them: one is Jay Fleischman, who is a bankruptcy lawyer in New York as well as an expert at teaching lawyers how to market a law firm online and another is Stephen Fairley, and I talk about them all on my Just for Lawyers Blog, which I wrote for the same reason that I'm writing this: to keep people (in that case, lawyers) from needing to file bankruptcy.
I'm writing this blog for a very specific reason: I have friends who have small businesses.
And those small businesses have been hit hard by this depression.
And I don't want my buddies to have to file bankruptcy for their businesses, or for themselves.
So I figured that if I was going to teach them what I had learned about quick, free or cheap online marketing techniques, I might as well teach you at the same time.
And if that sounds like a plan to you, well, it also sounds like a plan to me; so watch this space for your first class in online marketing, for My Favorite Price!
And here's a preview. Your first class is going to be about a quick, easy, free and wildly effective online marketing vehicle.
Google Places!
