Brent Worley Blog

To the voting public of American Idol:  Huh?

Granted Carly Smithson has been taking heat from Simon for weeks, her performance on Tuesday should have been enough to put her through to the next round.  In fact, that song proved that she can have a great time, perform, and not feel like she is trying too hard to impress everyone.  In fact, even Simon liked it (for once).

Instead of picking the person who blew it (Brooke White) or the guy that has no business making it this far (Jason Castro), you pick one of the two females that have some real talent and chance of making it in the music industry.

But there is an obvious reason why Brooke made it through:  She has a huge following based off of her looks and previous performances.

In fact, one forum I participate on continually has post about how “hot” Brooke is.  Of course, most of these guys are 18-23, single, and “living life” so to speak.  But this may have had a lot to do with who all continues to vote for her.

Had this been the first time she has slipped on her performance, it might be a little more easily forgiven.  However, this is a second time.

Brooke’s following is that similar to viral marketing techniques.  Consider it a “bandwagon” mentality of followers.  Her popularity has spread quite rapidly since Hollywood week was over.  Her fans have been contagious in how they promote her looks and talent, as is evident by the buzz on the Internet and now the voting.  Through this viral spreading of her fan base, the show became about popularity and not about performances (especially recent performances).  Brooke is talented…just not the most talented this week.

One good thing did come out of this week:  It left hope for a finale with the two real superstars of this season:  David Cook and David Archuleta.

Some people blog for the sheer enjoyment of sharing what is going on in their lives. Others use it as a medium to pass on information to people who might need to know about something.

Personally, I think Wordpress and blogging are best used as a mixture of business and pleasure.

I love writing on this blog, but I also realize the HUGE potential that blogging can have for marketing products, businesses, concepts, and ideas. In fact, I have spent quite a bit of time (my mentor would probably say too much time) learning how to optimize my blogs and market them correctly.

An example:

Many know that I have some decent involvement in the mortgage industry through a company called National Mortgage Associates. It is a company owned by my friend and mentor Terry Snyder. He started this concept a couple of years back and we have been working to continue it.

The concept of a mortgage training company would not be complete if we did not offer any training. One of the hottest mortgage products on the market currently is the FHA line of products. Terry turned me on to a FHA training program that had an affiliate program attached to it. After reading how to use Wordpress to do some promotion of affiliate programs, I decided to put it to the test.

http://www.fhatrainingreview.com was born.

The site is nothing more than a keyword optimized Wordpress blog. I’ve used many techniques I have learned to make the blog optimized for a niche market.

With the on-page SEO complete, I have been working on multiple off-page SEO techniques to drive backlinks up from pages with great Page Rank. I did all of this in the course of a three to four hours.

By the way, you may be wondering how I came about learning all of this, my resources, mentors, etc.

The most helpful resource I have is my Internet Marketing Home Study Course. A very good family friend and mentor of mine, Scott Miller, put this together as he was learning the multitude of ways to market his business online. It has been a HUGE help.

Another product that helped me in terms of affiliate marketing via Wordpress is Niche Marketing On Crack. This was a recommended product from the Warrior Forum. It gave me some ideas about how to utilize more Wordpress specific functionality and how to market for specific niche keywords. The keywords I chose for the FHA training product have very little competition.

So yes, blogging is slightly therapeutic, but it can be profitable at the same time. I’ll update the blog in the next few days once Google re-indexes the site and sees the updated content.

Just think that 5 years ago we were complaining that gas prices were above $1.20/gallon. Now we are faced with prices that make even Honda drivers cringe. After all, your car may get 30 miles to the gallon, but putting in nearly $50 still hurts.

With gas rising, though, marketing efforts for anyone who offer a product or company that can earn them extra should increase as well. People are looking for second income streams or second jobs. With this in mind, ramping up your online marketing is becoming critical.

I’m personally trying to write more articles, start up more sites on pages with Page Rank, and other methods to draw people to one of my many primary copy sites. I’m also going to be increasing some of my affiliate marketing efforts in hopes of earning a few extra dollars here and there myself.

So its time to break out the old dusty brain and begin working diligently again. Write more articles, increase your web presence, and spend some time learning more about marketing online will drastically help your traffic, your business, and eventually your personal pain at the pump.

I never cared for the concept of American Idol until I got hooked watching the auditions last year. Now, its a weekly ritual (and set to record on the DVR in case I’m gone). Its interesting to me…I actually get hooked on the performers and how they do.

For the longest time I figured the baby-faced 17 year old crooner David Archuleta would win it all. After all, he is (in my honest but educated opinion) the most talented vocalist. He has a great future ahead of him but he lacks originality.

Enter David Cook.

I’ve always like David’s style. He’s a rocker with a good voice. What makes him stand out is his ability to take a song, put his touches on it, and make it sound like an original that could be a #1 hit all over again.

Take this week’s theme: Mariah Carey. She is one of my favorite all-time female vocalist but I’m not a HUGE fan of some of her songs. “Hero” was huge hit, as was “One Sweet Day” (combined with Boyz II Men…my all-time favorite song. Ever. Period). However, I never really cared for “Always Be My Baby” as a song. It was a little too, well, bubbly for my taste.

Again, enter David Cook.

David C. takes the song, adds his touch (whoever is helping him with arranging these is a genius…and if no one is helping him, David C. is a genius), and makes a song that I believe will be #1 again. It reminded me of Aerosmith and Bon Jovi in the late 1990’s: A great song, darker than the original (more “rock” than “pop”), and performed very well.

My take on it is this: While David A. is talented vocally and a hit with the “teeny bopper” girls, he lacks one thing that David C. has. Yes, both have great voices, a great stage presence, and great careers ahead of them. David A. lacks a certain flare and originality.

David C. (boy its confusing marking who’s who…even I get confused typing it) has the ability to take a song, here it through his ears, and make it a hit. The other David just sings really, really, REALLY well.

By the way, this is a great point in marketing. David A. has a great voice and a great following, but he has yet to really brand himself. David C. brands each performance with his own touch (other than great vocals). You hear in marketing of anything that you should always brand yourself and not just your products or company. This is a great example of just this.

David C. has managed to brand “David Cook” as a future star, regardless of how the voting turns out. Tonight’s performance is just one great example of that. His voice, his arrangements, his personality on stage, everything about him sets him apart from just a singer or just a guy with looks. He has set “David Cook” up for a successful run in the music business.

Six months after moving in to the new house, our office is finally taking shape. It took some time to find a desk that we thought would be suitable: Had to have lots of space, had to look decent, but had to be near childproof. Finally, after searching, we found it.

And then I did the unthinkable: I bought a laptop that was not an Apple Macbook. I had my eyes on one for quite a while now, but when it came down to it, I needed a Windows based machine to handle some of the mortgage work I do.

To top it off, I did not even buy a Dell (although I wanted one they had at Best Buy, but they were sold out and had no idea when they might get more). Instead, I opted for an HP.

To be honest, the machine is quite nice. I like the new look and feel of having a widescreen monitor on the laptop rather than the normal 4:3 ratio screen. I feel it is a better picture as well as having more room to have things up and running at once.

Of course, I have become accustomed to have 2 screens with my employer, so I decided that an external monitor was a definite. As many different webinars and other multi-tasking environments I put myself in, a secondary screen is a nice touch to keep my personal productivity up.

The monitor was actually a very nice deal. I lucked onto an LG model. I have a 22″ LG LCD HDTV in the bedroom and think its a pretty good picture for a smaller television, even in HD. The monitor just happened to be the same price as a Dell monitor that I had seen at Wal-Mart. I jumped at the chance to take home a brand name monitor (widescreen as well) at a good price.

Oh yeah…and to top off the office, I had to have some “white noise” as well as something to inform and entertain. Hence, the 19″ widescreen hooked up to the DirecTV connection. During the day, it is typically set to CNN as something to listen to without distracting me too much from the work I am trying to accomplish.

As you’ll notice, the walls a bare. April and I are working on that. We have some ideas on what we want to put up, but nothing yet. Diplomas? Good possibility. Inspirational posters? I would be more likely to choose something from this collection. A whiteboard? Well, that is going up directly behind me. I hope to use it to keep track of….something, although not 100% sure what I’ll use it for yet.

We still have boxes out in the garage we have to sort through and figure out where we are going to put things.

Plus, I still have 2 pieces of equipment to purchase just for office use alone: A new printer (color laser, most likely) and a fax machine.

I’m just happy that it is all finally taking shape. It has been over 2 and a half years since we have had a room dedicated to being an office. Its nice to have somewhere that you can dedicate to being productive in marketing and business and not be tempted to lie down on the bed or having small hands trying to help you type.

So when you read a blog, see any marketing post I make, etc, look at these pictures, because this is most likely where it was thought up.

Oh yeah, and forgive the mess (April has already pointed it out in these pictures). Part of it is the typical “moving and organizing” mess, the rest is Brooklyn working in mommy and daddy’s office.

If anyone ever wonders what it is like in our house, here are two videos that show exactly how crazy it can get.

The first video is a cute clip we have of Brooklyn performing her version of the Subway $5 Footlong commercial. Hey Subway, if you’re watching, here’s your next star!

The second video is Brooklyn and Tori being, well, Brooklyn and Tori. They run, they play, and all of this inbetween giggles and laughs. They have a good time, are great kids, and love to have a great time.

By the way, this is only about 5 minutes of slightly edited video. This excitement was going on for at least 30 minutes…all between bath time and bed time.

Enjoy the videos!

So it is Sunday night, and time for another week to begin.

Joy….

Actually, tomorrow should be an interesting day if all goes according to plan.  I had an email from the CEO of the mortgage affiliate branch my business partner and I are associated with.  We have been in conversations for a couple of weeks about taking on more responsibility within the company itself.  The email today stated that everything is setup and ready to go.  We’ll see what all of this leads to, but I’m hoping it will be another profit center (on top of my role as the branch manager, I might be serving as a “district” manager which might open up some opportunity to make some more cash).

Tomorrow also should be a payday, as our branch is owed money from our previous district manager.  I requested a wire on Friday.  I am pressing for it to show up tomorrow in full so we can close that nightmare chapter of the branch’s history.  The guy is really nice until he owes you a check.

On top of all of that, I’ve launched a new lead gathering website this weekend and began viral video marketing for it.  Hopefully that will begin to pay off in the near future (page views started happening today, so hopefully traffic will pick up).

This week should be better than last, if all goes well….at least, I hope.

I’ll keep this space updated with how the marketing is going, what we did, etc.

Last night a group of tornadoes blew through central Arkansas.

We were about 2-3 miles from a spotted funnel cloud.

While we were okay (after waking up the girls and throwing them into the closet), some of the damage that happened in and around the Little Rock area was incredible. One cop car happened to catch video of a tornado ripping through a car lot. You can see the tornado snapping the light pole.

Amazingly, there were few injuries and only one fatality attributed to a vehicle accident following the tornadoes.

And also amazingly, the girls went back to sleep without a lot of fuss or hassle after we emerged from the storm closet.

Click here to see the video.

Viral Marketing at its best.

Guy learns how to play via his affiliate program and decides to promote it on YouTube…and ended up tearing it up in his affiliate program.

The link? Check it out on his YouTube video upload page.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8

I’ve been busy recently and was reflected over to Cotton Rohrscheib’s blog and saw that Wordpress 2.5 has been released.

So I’ve upgraded.  Very nice overall.  I still have not had a lot of chance to play with everything yet, but give me time and I will.