Google Calendar A Godsend To A Small Business Marketer

I'm spending as much time working from my home office as working from my "office" office, or my clients' offices. Yes, I do have a PDA (it's a grown up Palm Pilot called AlphaSmart, a laptop alternative). But I'm not too diligent when it comes to synchronizing it with my Outlook.

Now, the new Google Calendar comes to my rescue. The Quick Add feature is the best. It's almost like having a human personal assistant. "Susan, I am having lunch with John Q. The Client at 12:30 PM tomorrow".

And what if I'm not online? Well, that shouldn't be too much of a problem because I have my daily to do list with me.

Alright. I'm giving it a try.

AIDA: Old Marketing Formula for New Marketers

Today, I did a 1 hour talk to a class of 12-graders. It was the son of one of the guys in my business networking group who invited me (Thank you Michael. It was great to meet you.)

They had "leaders" of various caliber speak to them about "business".

I wish they did this to me when I was in Grade 12! (I actually never was in Grade 12, but that’s another story.)

Based on my experience of working with these kids' dads and moms, I didn't expect them to know much, if anything, about marketing.

Not them. Not these kids.

Well, I was in for a nice surprise. The AIDA formula (stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, in case you have not been around Planet Earth for the last 120 years) was old hat to them.

I kid thee not: They can teach their own parents some marketing! And if they did, maybe those parents wouldn't be struggling as much in their little businesses. And who knows, maybe those businesses wouldn't be so little anymore.

Targeted spamming... I mean, marketing...

Among all the spam I shovel out of my Inbox every day, I get some interesting pieces. The one I got today was particularly hilarious.

Here's what it was:

Dear alex@bizLeverage.com:

Our company offer Target marketing services:

1. Supply target emaiI-list (Just for your order).

2. Custom-built your email-list and send out your email
message for you.

Right... I guess it doesn't get any more "targeted" than this, does it?