Brad Slavin » Just ! Me

Direct and to the point

Brad Slavin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:39:04 +0000

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.??? –Oscar Wilde

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Locella – Frank Kern, Jordan Belfort – What Happened Here?

Brad Slavin — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:15:17 +0000

Did the marketing brilliance of Frank Kern and the sales mastery of Jordan Belfort strike out with their joint venture Locella.com?

One of the best parts of living in San Diego other than the weather which goes without saying is the HUGE and very viable Internet marketing community that thrives in the Southern California climate. For those of you who are not familiar with the ranks of the Internet marketing elite in San Diego we have Mike Koenig (personal hero) from Traffic Geyser and his new social media marketing machine , Frank Kern, Trey Smith, and not sure where Jason Moffatt is these days but San Diego was his home. These and others understand that the San Diego lifestyle works perfectly for our Internet marketing business – the benefit of living close to these guys is the ability to go to the events and to network with other people who are are at the top of their game….that was a long ramble but anyways living in SD also gave me the opportunity to walk by the Locella building on my way to the bank.

Full disclosure here – I’ve been a big fan of Frank Kern for a number of years I went through his Mass Control, Mass Control 2.0, and List Control with my Four Hour Work Week Meetup group. My girlfriend thinks that given the chance I would name my first born child male or female to – “Frank Kern”.

At the List Control event I was introduced to Jordan Belford, the “Wolf of Wall Street”. This guy was absolutely amazing his presentation style, commanded the stage and his ability to convince people to move in a certain direction really inspired me. Two words – absolutely brilliant. Jeff and I have changed our business because of what we have learned from him. Authentic excellence.

Needless to say there was an opportunity to sign up for coaching with Belfort and I snapped that up in a heartbeat and I subsequently attended live event in Los Angeles. But I digress, one of the things that I learned at List Control was that Jordan, Frank and Trey were forming a local Internet marketing company Locella.

What a blow to the kidneys that was…to hear that the top guys in the Internet marketing space were now going to be competing with me directly, ouch. I checked out their website and through some competitive intelligence discovered that they were going to be providing Pay-Per-Click management and basic SEO to plumbers and auto repair body shops.

I even called the office and got pitched on their program. Initially I panicked about having an Internet g-ds like Frank Kern and sales guru Jordan Belford not only in my physical backyard but also directly compete with me my industry. Heck I was so scared of Locella that I ran my own SEO campaign to outrank locella for the words “locella internet marketing” and I when I last checked I was number two right below their BBB listing. No joke I was scared of what was to come.

Frank Kern is a role model for me and THE (I mean THE reason that I am in Internet maketing today) and when he entered into my space and was going to be competing directly against the local business I asked myself if it was time to reconsider my approach that had been working so well for local business marketing? (thank you Mike Koenig for that little bid of inspiration) Was it time to move onto something less competitive? Well that though lasted all of 30 seconds

Do you know what it is like to see legends enter into your niche with more firepower and brainpower – it is the stuff of nightmares. But the reality is that past success does not ensure future success…

The Locella offices are just down the street from my bank so I started to walk by their offices and do some strategic investigations which led to some online research and I figured out what I needed to do to get pitched by one of their salespeople and using what I learned from NLP and Jordan I deconstructed the sales pitch “they were using the straight-line” in an effort to figure out precisely what they were offering. I never got to the quote stage but from what I heard and the 10 page sales letter that I read some things just did not add up for me.

At the core it seemed like installing a

wordpress website for a client,
with a tracking phone number and
point some PPC traffic to the site for lead generation.

Seems pretty simple but I think that their price point was about $800 and I am not quite sure how much was going to the PPC budget and how much was directed towards the company but I figured that at the price of those clicks there was going to be fulfillment problem – someone was going to get screwed here. There did not seem to be enough margin to create a sustainable business and way to much client interactions for Frank and Trey to worry about. I think there was a dream of future valuations for the business – but honestly I did not see why it was worth their and Jordan’s time.

My assumption was that Jordan trained the team and that Frank and Trey were the Internet lead gen brains behind the operation. This part is speculation but I figured that they might have had the service fulfilled with a national brand like ReachLocal but at 30% of the PPC spend going to ReachLocal there was really no margin for Locella to be in the business and for the CLIENTS TO GET WHAT THEY WERE PAYING FOR. Was there integrity in this model to begin with? Sure you have a great sales engine but who the heck was going to fulfill it…

So when my business partner Jeff and I did the math on what it would take to appropriately manage somebody’s PPC spend and knowing how much PPC costs in the plumbing space is on a PPC basis – it seems to us that either they were charging too little for the service, they were not delivering on what they promised or they were doing some other lead generation techniques other than just pure PPC because there is NO way to get a high volume of PPC leads for a plumber and make enough profit by charging $800-$1700 a month all inclusive for PPC bid management and Internet marketing….even with a 30% conversion rate on clicks to calls – just no way!

So Jeff and I went on our merry way and just assumed that we had a well financed competitor with more sales peoples, and more cache then we would ever have and we got down to minding our own business.

Fast forward 5 months and a few weeks ago I went to La Jolla and walked by the Locella offices to see how they had grown and to my surprise they had moved out! I mean this place was stripped bare…I then went to locella.com and instead of a full blown website it was just their logo and a contact us telephone number. Called the number and it looks like the businesses shut down completely – it was a typical “please leave a message and we will call you right back” message but something just did not feel right.

I am not quite sure what’s happening but I’ve also noticed that Frank has picked up his pace he is offering consulting services at FrankKernSuccess.com and it looks like Jordan is in South Africa and Australia continuing to do what they’re doing so I am not sure what is going on.

I sent Jordan an email on facebook asking about Locella but from the outside it looks like the Jordan Belfort – Frank Kern – Trey Smith Internet marketing machine known as Locella has crumbled to the ground.

The major lesson that I learned here is trust your gut and worry about keeping your clients happy and not spending time copying your competitors – because they don’t always get it right.

Disney Social Action – Give a Day, Get a Day

Brad Slavin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:58:49 +0000

Lisa shared a website with me last night about social action, volunteering and of all places Disneyland. The meat of the matter is -

Disney wants to inspire a million people to volunteer a day of service in their own communities and in exchange Disney will give each of them a 1-day, 1-theme park ticket for free! Now Disney has always been about community – think “it’s a small world after all” but this is the best example of social action from a major corporation that I have seen in a while… If you are a facebook friend of mine you have seen my Disney pics – if not, watch this to get a hint of what they are offering.

You can get all the info at the Give a Day, Get a Day site.

The Darwin Awards for 2009 Are Out….

Brad Slavin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:23:45 +0000

My rules for keeping out of the running..

Use dynamite sparingly
Look before you leap
Don’t jump back in the lake
Leave the balloons to the movie Up.

http://www.darwinawards.com

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Fire Extinguisher for Flame Wars

Brad Slavin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 05:40:15 +0000

Where was this post three weeks ago? http://www.bitrebels.com/geek/do-not-feed-the-trolls/ A great article about the love hate relationship that trolls have with the Internet community in general. The Collegehumor video is a must watch…if you spend part of the time trying to keep up with the terminology, be thankful. If you don’t know what they are rambling on about, it just means that you have a life.

Traffic Information About the Video

Brad Slavin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:52:16 +0000

I have had some emails requesting some insight into where the traffic is coming from. Well it started with Engadget yesterday and then spread to twitter and a few other sites. I am not really sure of where all the traffic is coming from because youtube does not have really good analytics – but here is a screencap of the bit.ly stats. Thanks for the folks at http://skitch.com/ who make this oooh so easy to do. (no not paid, nor sponsored – I just like their application)

Click for the bigger image.

Screencap from Youtube

Lots of Youtube Email in the Inbox…

Brad Slavin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:28:05 +0000

Now that’s a lot of mail in the inbox… Last count 1740 video comments, almost 400 additional contacts. Not bad.

Comment Conversion Rate for Youtube

Brad Slavin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:25:54 +0000

I was reviewing the comment to views conversion rate on the youtube video and it really sucks. I think it works out to be .006% views to posts. Not complaining, but on the blog the numbers are yet unknown. I have started tracking in GA using the technique found at http://www.tdcreative.net/blog/how-to-track-wordpress-signups-and-comments-with-google-analytics/ but if anyone has a better method let me know.

Update – Just made the edits to track submisions, and I hope nothing broke. However if you need to reach me, just send email.

Microsoft Store in Mission Viejo

Brad Slavin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:56:49 +0000

Last night on our way to a birthday party at the Derby Deli & Dueling Piano Bar – Lisa and I stopped in at The Shops at Mission Viejo mall to kill some time. Traffic from San Diego was a little hectic so I figured that some time spend doing some retail therapy might do some good.

As we walked into the mall I was confronted with the early signs of Christmas and while the prospect of walking the mall with “deck the halls” at my back brought a grimace to my face but the little kids running by the well lit displays made me remember what the holidays are all about.

Walking down the main corridor of the mall I saw a huge white banner that read “Microsoft Store – Now Open”. I guess I have been disconnected from the platform for quite a while because I did not even realize that Microsoft had store but I have heard so many great things about Windows 7 I just had to check it out. I half expected the store to be a bland uninspiring cheap knockoff of an Apple Store, but WOW was I in for a surprise.

From the moment you first step through the door you can feel it, something is special, something is electric in the air. So many smiling faces, so many people engaged and fully committed to the experience and NO I am not just taking about the employees the nearly sixty shoppers in the store were having a riveting experience interacting with what is clearly the future.

Words really can’t do the experience justice so here are some videos that I created on my new Kodak ZI8 in 1080p mode.

Project Natal is the next level of user interaction with a computer. I had not even heard about it, I guess like so many other things Microsoft it looks to be game and life changing.

We have all seen the previews of the interactive table but I actually had the chance to “interact” with it. The table uses 3D bar codes to determine what object has been laid down. I tried taking a picture of the bar code with my phone and displaying the picture to see if I could clone it, but no luck there.

Mid way through our visit the entire store broke out into song. Now I have seen this gimmick before at Coldstone Creamery and I know how they have been criticized in the media for it, but here it did not seem forced nor contrived, I would honestly say that this was the staff letting go, having some fun and not taking the brand all to seriously.

I was absolutely floored by this experience, Microsoft has made a bold move to capture new market share. I ordered a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate edition – I have been a hard core Mac person for the past five years, I completely bypassed the Windows Vista experience but something is telling me that I am at a precipice looking directly into the future. Oh, and I just canceled my order for the 27inch iMac quad, I need a little time to think it over.
Its easy to see that Microsoft primarily is a software company committed to changing the world through technical innovation and that Apple is a hardware company that is changing the world through design innovations. They need each other to push the limits of their own visions.

Earth Class Mail: A better way to handle physical mail

Brad Slavin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:23:26 +0000

Earth Class Mail is a service that I have been looking at for a long time as a solution to my bad habit of NEVER checking my mailbox.

They have a system that handles physical mail via email it is called Earth Class Mail brlliant! On more than one occasion I have had to visit the post office because my mailbox filled up and they “impounded” the mail and halted delivery. Ouch!

The majority of my bills are electronic, I get the statement, I use my bill pay software to pay the bill and I never have to touch paper! No spam, no junk mail, no credit card offers, no coupon packs. And after a while you also get no checks from clients because the mail carrier stops delivering the mail… Ouch.

After picking up the huge box of paper (time after time) I realized that 99% of the volume and almost 100% of the weight was just junk…trash…(well actually recycling) but its a problem. There is just no reason that there should be so much junk. The other issue is that with all of that crap, its easy to miss the important pieces of mail trapped in the folds of the local coupon books.

The other reason to consider an all digital delivery for your mail is to protect against identity theft or if you are a vagabond and like to travel. This way you can get your physical mail sent to your Inbox wherever you have access to your email. Check them out – I will and I will keep you updated. Once again, Earth Class Mail for handling your physical mail via email.

Oh you can also view it on my cell phone.