February 8 in Vegas, baby! REGISTER HERE

Many in the home furnishings industry are still trying to figure out how to best use the internet to boost the bottom line. To simplify the complex world of online marketing, home furnishings retailers, manufacturers, representatives and suppliers will gather at an Industry-Wide Web Summit on February 8, 2009, in Las Vegas.

The most pressing issues in the home furnishings industry are increasing expenses and decreasing revenues. Being online is the solution to both. We’ve broken online marketing down to its basic fundamentals. After four hours of teaching and an hour of interactive discussion, you will better understand the whole because you’ll understand the parts.

12⁴⁵ Intro://Las Vegas Room@Harrah’s

1.oo Recipe for Online Content://Rick Doran/ President.CEO@RAMarketing.com

2.oo Simplifying PPC and SEO Marketing://Mark Phelps/President.CEO@PartnerMarketing.biz

3.oo The Power of e-Marketing://David McMahon/Director.E-Commerce@PROFITconsulting.com

4.oo What You Had Better Know About e-Commerce://David Lively/President.CEO@TheLivelyMerchant.com

5.oo Expert Panel Discussion://Mary Frye/President@HFIA.com

All segments of the home furnishings industry are invited to learn how to improve their business through online marketing. The agenda is filled with valuable content that guarantees you will not be disappointed in what you hear. Seating is limited. Registration is required for this free event.

Click here to register: please provide your name, company and telephone number.

“If you’re not converting to commerce at your Web site, I don’t think you’ll be around 10 years from now,” said Ed Stevens, chief executive of Shopatron.

Mr. Stevens was talking directly about the furniture business when he made this statement.

Online furniture sales are already at $12.3 billion. By 2012 Forrester Research, Inc. estimates sales will reach $26.7 billion!

This is a gut busting 46% increase in the next 3 years.

I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m not saying it will come without failure. I’m not saying it’s for everyone.

I’m saying if you aren’t doing something about this situation right now, you are throwing money down the toilet!

Remember all of those friendly vendors that “want to partner with you?”

The ones who give you little or no CO-OP, but will gladly provide free flyers promoting their brands – NOT yours.

These companies are now your competitors.

Since LZB, Ethan-Allen, and Bassett are selling online how long do you think it will take for Ashley, Broyhill, Lane, and Thomasville to follow suit?

We have been working for over two years on solutions to these questions.

We can and want to help. Will you let us?

Thursday afternoon I mistakenly made a post to our site that was “not ready for primetime.” I screwed up. It just so happens the screw up is exactly what I needed to help this post really make the point.

You see, we make the assumption that since you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work. The E-Myth talks about the technician mentality. Just because a person is a doctor doesn’t mean they are capable of running a medical practice. A mechanic cannot necessarily manage a auto repair shop. Finally, just because someone can run a company doesn’t mean they can market it.

If you want to talk more about the pick-up lines that are working in the 21^st century I suggest you attend our no holds-barred meeting in February.

It’s happening day before the opening day of this winter’s market.

In this case, what happens in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas.

I never gave any thought to the worldview of Willie Nelson. In fact, his pot-smoking, Jack-Daniels-drinking, hell-raising stories just doesn’t line up real well with my life plan. So when friend suggested a couple of years ago I read “The Tao of Willie,” I thought it would be a waste of time. I was wrong. Remembering a chapter this morning I think y’all may relate to his message.

“Since life is a journey, let’s think of it as a road trip. Ahead of you are untold opportunities for joy, learning, sharing, and a lot of fantastic sunsets and sunrises. And every one of these opportunities will be at the intersection of your trip and a road called Now.

“Unlike a real highway, it’s not a problem if you doze off and coast right through the corner of Now and Happiness avenues, because life is an infinite progression of these intersections, and each of them holds opportunity, surprise, and the promise of a smile.

“But if you’re asleep at the wheel your whole life, you’re gonna miss a lot of places called Now.

“Thousands of pages and millions of words have been written about living in the moment, but it is not a complicated idea. All you have to do is open your eyes — and all your senses – to the world around you.

“The easiest mistake on earth is to forget to appreciate what you have right now.

“Take last year, for instance, when my hand started knotting up on me and I found it almost impossible to play guitar. I went to see a bunch of doctors and they got worried looks on their faces, and that put a worried look on my face, and that got my band and crew looking really worried. When I don’t work, they don’t work. And we all like to work.

“So I had to take a few months off for surgery. And while my hand was healing more slowly than I wanted it to, I had a of time to appreciate all those gigs that I’d sometimes let myself think were just the okay gigs.

“Away from the road, I realized that every show is a blessing.

“I’m not trying to say that nothing goes wrong in my life. Or in yours. Your love life may not be perfect — okay, chances are your love life is definitely NOT perfect. Work may have something lacking, and you may be a few coins shy of that Jamaican vacation you’ve been dreaming about. But those are not causes of unhappiness. Those are distractions, obstacles, and challenges to overcome.

“You may carry a big chip on your shoulder about things that happened to you in the past, but that chip is nothing but a weight that’s anchoring you to intersections you’ve already passed.

“Quit looking in the rear view mirror and set your sights on the road ahead.”

Willie is a pretty smart guy. Don’t you think?

A point to ponder, from Brian Clark on copyblogger.com:

Mass media is a historical aberration. For a short 70-odd years of human history, a relatively small group of people told us what to think and what to buy, and we were expected to passively accept it.

That’s not how things worked for thousands of years before, and that’s not how it’s going to work in the future. Clinging to the precepts of a brief period of weirdness may not be the best model to guide us, you think?

Before mass media, people marketed their wares directly to one another in a social context. Some people were considered honest and trustworthy, and some people were considered shills and charlatans. Others were revealed to be criminals and con men.

Same as it ever was.

What do you think?

Peter Drucker said the purpose of business “is to create a customer.”

This is true, but it is only a single layer of the truth. Another layer is described by Ogden Nash in Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man:

It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,

That all sin is divided into two parts.

One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important,

And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant,

And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from Billy Sunday to Buddha,

And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.

Customers are created by commission as well as omission. A great teacher explained it to me this way: what you leave out is just as important as what you leave in. Seems simple when I write it here, but when we are under the gun and families depend on the decisions we are making, it’s difficult not to pucker like you have a mouth full of lemon drops. The temptation is to try to be all things to all people. Customers decide whether or not they will do business with you based on what is included as well as what isn’t.

Will you include the desires of their hearts in 2009? Do you provide them a safe, fun, fresh, fast place to come spend their time and money?

If not, your cost of marketing will skyrocket in the next 24 months. Marketing will not be able to create enough smoke and mirrors to confuse Ms. Jones.

Money is tight, really tight. Combine this with even tighter time and the ability to communicate with lightning speed and deadly accuracy and she’s packing a 1-2 punch capable of bringing you to your knees.

As Paul said, “Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.”