The article I wrote was based on a online marketing 101 overview of B. Reid Zeh’s website.  It really does sucks from a conversion standpoint and basically lies to consumers.  (Read the article if this interest you.)  Needless to say Mr Zeh was not impressed when he read the article.

Reid Zeh responded to this article in a fashion that would work with most.  He called my office and threatened me with a lawsuit if I did not remove the blog entry.  He also said that he would file for an injunction to have it taken down and if I did not comply I would be jailed. (%#!#)  For me that was the straw that broke the camels back.  If he would of came to me amicably and professionally and asked me to take the article down I would of probably done it.  Instead he resorted to threats and denigration, both of which I do not cotton well to.

I am a fairly reasonable person.  The blog post in question provides value to those that read it and basically gave Mr Zeh a free online marketing analysis of his website, which he should of acted upon.  If he wanted me to take it down he should of had his hat in his hand and not include the phrase “lawsuit” in his first sentence of the conversation we had yesterday.  I have dealt with bullying like this before based on things I have written about ill advised online marketing by others.  That original article still stands.

If Reid Zeh is dumb enough to sue me over a blog post about how his website sucks it will be very comical to defend.  I will have the opportunity in open court to show other attorneys how they can improve their online marketing efforts and how Reid Zeh is doing it wrong.  I cannot think of a better marketing proposition for my business..

Update 11/27/2010 (10 days after the threat of suit and 7 days past the day he said he would do it)  -  Reid Zeh’s threats were nothing more than idle words.  He has failed to act upon his threats of suing me.  This has a lot to say about his competency as a litigator.  If he fails to follow through on threats of suits like the one he made to me it is doubtful he will represent clients with any type of zeal.  If you are considering hiring him to represent you I would keep looking for a lawyer who can show you how aggressive they are versus telling you how good they are.  All Mr Zeh is capable of producing is hot air, not much else.

Actually I have found that following to many people has made it more difficult to cut through the noise and find opportunities for engagement.  People are able to get through the clutter of MLM spammers and habitual link droppers and enjoy doing it, I have a hard time doing it even using tweetdeck to help manage the noise.

One of my downfalls in enjoying my twitter experience as much as I possibly can is the refusal to drop people I am following if they are following me.  That has now changed.  If they are pushing the latest greatest make money online or MLM product I am dropping you like a bad habit.  If they use the aberration ” TweetMyBlog” as their only source of “connecting” they are gone.

This blog post may also cause others to stop following me as well.  I can live with it and if it pushes me out of the top 1000 life will go on.

I would love to hear your tips on cutting through the twitter..

BTW ..  Follow me on Twitter if you don’t fit the demographic above.

On a personal note I lost two very dear family members last year my grandfather and niece.  Neither loss was a surprise nonetheless it still does make either one easier to swallow.  It reemphasizes how precious life is and that we should not take anyone’s existence for granted.

It does not look like my son Preston will have any major surgeries this year wich is a relief.  Do the awareness my family has we have become local Pathfinders for the Cleft Advocate.  While in the past we have supported overseas efforts and still will to an extent but the need for education and help at home is a more important goal.

I learned some great financial lessons over the last year as well.  Needless to say 2008 was not the best year for me on a personal level in that regards.  It probably was not for anyone who is the automotive industry barring a few exceptions.  My faux pas were not industry tied as much as poor planning and I am at a point in my life that should not be an issue.  I am not fortunate enough to be a member of the old money club, I have to create my own old money.

I am now consulting and providing services to car dealers full-time as a contractor and love it.  My business is growing by leaps and bounds.  I have to thank Jared Hamilton at drivingsales.com for some of this success even though he does not agree with my opinions all the time.  They are on the right track to make a difference in the Car Business however in my opinion they need to change some things internally.  I was affiliated with them last year and I chose to leave to pursue my own opportunities.

What is a New Year post without listing goals?  Here You go:

• Stop Smoking – It is way past time to kick this habit..
• Spend More Time with Family – I work more hours in a day now than I did when I had a regular JOB (just over broke) and need to set that balance.
• Build my business to a point where one client does not make a difference.
• Help my spouse revitalize our network of affiliate properties.
• Dust off my golf clubs – I was a 5 handicap until I tore my rotator cuff in 1994.  Since that time I have probably only played 10 rounds of golf.  I loved the game it was a passion that needs to be rekindled.
• And some I am not going to share here. 

Happy New Year to All – Wishing you the best success in 2009 however you define it.

In a recent post at drivingsales.com I sent a post a link as a trackback really to help drivingsales with SEO and to show dealers there are multiple ways to drive online traffic to themselves.  When the vendor read the original post they commented that “SEO takes ages” and took it as an in fun challenge to show that SEO can be almost instant.  “Dealer.com SEO vs Search Engine Marketing”

The post was not inflammatory but the phone call I got regarding it was.  I was even offered an education by an executive at dealer.com in search engine optimization in his voice mail.  I got thick skin, but they attacked my business model with mealy mouthed comments and my intelligence with an arrogant voice mail.

What is great is others have not started blogging about the post that talks got dealer.com going and I am sure more are to follow.  I am sure that these top end vendor executives are not going to like being showed up by us other automotive consultants.

Pure Dealers Post about the Dealer.com Challenge.

Sometimes we take these things for granted.  Living in the middle of so many natural resources we overlook obvious inexpensive family outings.  This was Preston’s first visit while Tyler and Alex have been to the beach a few times it was a great inexpensive family outing.

This trip reminded me why I chose to stay in this area and not take advantage of opportunities in other parts of the country.  We have a moderate winter climate and I just love the water.  After moving inland a few years ago I had forgotten how much I actually love the beach and all of the things that it entails living close to it.  So now we have decided to buy a new home within walking distance of the water while the real estate market is getting hammered down in Brunswick, Georgia.

We found a nice property today that needs some repairs and are going to make an offer on it tomorrow.  I hope we they take our offer, because it will allow us to casually sell our current home and not worry about being in a financial bind as we make the transition to “Going Coastal” and having the freedom to casually stroll the beaches at the end of a long day.

I am a perpetual optimist who happens to be a bit too pragmatic at times. An oxymoron to say the least, but that is who I am.  I find it humorous when people try to hide their weaknesses by attacking others.  We have all seen it in our daily lives and am not going to delve into examples here.  On the other side of that is when people realize their mistakes and use those as stepping stones to improve themselves and contributions to society, mistakes are the best learning tool we have.

Some of the things that have been going on around me lately in my life has caused me to reexamine some of my long term goals and it is due to interactions with others.  In the near term I do plan on maintaining my position as an Internet Sales Manager and keep my options open.  The rising cost of my son’s health care is casing me to realize the importance low cost health insurance, which spawned my return to the automobile industry and the networking opportunities that have resulted in this reentry into the regular workforce have proven bountiful.

My long term goal is to take the knowledge that I am developing and transform it into a niche business inside of a very lucrative marketplace as an Automotive Online Marketing Consultant and it is coming to fruition a lot faster than I had planned and has placed me at a crossroads and now must make a decision to move forward with that goal or happily do what I am doing and enjoy the comfortable success I have found.

I have the opportunity to partner with a leading automotive training firm as a consultant to develop some core products and to provide hands on training in dealerships across the country and the fears that are associated with entering the arena of the unknown or to remain in a position of omnipotence and answering only to myself.

Decisions, decisions, both roads are less traveled either way I am in for a bumpy ride, hopefully though it will not be in a circle like this blog post..

I was pretty vocal about the launch of the PayPerPlay network and the revival of the NetAudioAds Affiliate program and even dedicate a site to it.  What is funny is that they resorted to attempted character assasionation in an effort to downplay the truths of their organization.  A person who is basically anonymous started a site geared towards me that talks about me filing bankruptcy multiple times.  While I did file in the EARLY 90’s, due to becoming an adult too early in life it is comical that all the rest of the stuff she puts out there is just a mere attempt to take credibility away from me.

She takes shots about being the father of a child with a cleft lip and palate, my rant here about a troll leaving threating comments on this blog and claims I filed bankruptcy two times this year, which did not happen, she even claims I was born near Monroe, LA.  (Brunswick, GA is where I was born).

What is nice though is that they try to use the content here as a way to denigrate me and send me a bunch of traffic.  The thing is this is my only site that has no level of online “monetization” on it but I still like the free traffic.  Too bad I took the time to even post on this but tons of traffic is coming from her diatribe and I thought I would let people know the truth, as that is not in the cards from NetAudioAds and PayPerPlay and never will be.

It is all fun and games now………

On our ride home I was reminded several times by the children that they were sorry for misbehaving and my wife gave a scornful look.  It makes a long ride home longer.  Only to find that there are other issues when we return home.  Homework not done, kids not wanting to bathe and a wife who is getting more frustrated with me and the children.  I had a decision to make and make fast to save the evening from being completely ruined.  So I did as any studios husband, father does.  I let selective listening take over and started to tune out the noise around me.  Another bad choice.

Through no great effort of mine the homework got done, the children were bathed and put to bed and my bride was still not very cheerful.  Lost for words I could only do what I could and hugged and held her like we were giddy teenagers again only to be interrupted buy a child  not feeling well.  Sigh..

I took the time to tend to the child and get them back asleep only to find my wife sleeping soundly for me to deliver a kiss from the falsely ailing child, helped her get into bed only to find myself telling the world about it.

The silent house, sleeping children and bride and no interruptions cause me to reflect on how to redeem this day and allow kids to be kids, and to keep that unconditional love coming in.

I have had the opportunity to network with interesting people all over the country and world in 2007 and have formed some valuable bonds and made many friends and a few enemies. None of this would of been possible without the World Wide Web and the exposure you can receive through it. Networking possibilities are endless and formations of partnerships are priceless not just in the realm of making money but also in friendship and comradery.

Some people who have influenced my decisions for the up coming year are:

• Mike Patezold
• JD Rucker
• Jeff Kershner
• Melissa Rushing

Without the direct input each of these people have made upon my life I would not have the plans in place to make 2008 the best year possible for my family via the World Wide Web.

Good luck to all for the upcoming year!!

One thing I have never done is hide behind aliases, masked who I am or how to contact me. It is all out there for the world to see. So it is comical when I get troll comments where people use fake email addresses and aliases to post comments on my blogs. I can understand why people may want to be anonymous online and definitely respect peoples right to privacy. I have been a victim of Identity Theft in the past and even after after that I really do not go out of my way to hide who I am. I do subscribe to Life Lock and that does take away my fear of Identity Theft happening again.

On another note though no amount of Identity Theft Protection protects personal safety and when you see troll comments from an IP range within driving distance of your home it does make you wonder especially when I have been recently threatened by someone running a fraudulent marketing campaign. Even then though I know someone really out to do harm to me would not leave a troll comment, they would just do what they set out to do. Threats are for cowards. Especially when they infer things that they do not intend to do.

Granted I do get many spam comments on this site and many others that I own but I do have effective spam comment controls in place, but that does not stop trolls who use email addresses like bob@yahoo.com from showing up in my moderation cue. So I have now set up a membership requirement to post comments. That is unfortunate for people who like to comment and ads a few steps but it does cause the “Bobs” of the world to verify an email address before they can submit a comment so if they want to troll they at least must use a real email address.

Back to personal safety and being a highly vocal person when people do things that you do not agree with. I have several publication style sites that I am testing my journalistic skills on and they do concentrate on subjects that are controversial. Kind of like the news reporters that call out companies that take advantage of consumers. Instead of showing up with a camera in their face I just put it on the web. I thought about my personal safety when I started sites like that and realized that I am not going to live under a rock because I call a spade a spade no more than reporters that you see on television.

One thing I like about living in Rural Coastal Georgia is owning a gun does not carry the stigma that it does in other parts of the country. Nor is it considered unusual behavior. Since childhood I have been a collector of sorts for guns. My wife calls it my arsenal. I have pistols, shot guns, hunting rifles, although I am not a hunter, and assault rifles. High end and low end. So as far as my personal safty goes I have never really been worried and never really will be. My family is another story.

My wife and adult children are more than capable of defending themselves as I have spent countless hours out plinking with them. My wife and adult daughter both carry .25 pistols in their purse and know how to use them. My adult son loves to look at guns as much as I do and there is no telling what he owns now but I am positive that he is more than capable of defending himself as well. That just leaves my primary concern with my small school age children. They know not to let strangers approach them and how to conduct themselves if they are approached and am confident that they would seek an adult that they know if they were approached. That does not change the fact that they must to be overly cautious and requires me to spend more time with them teaching them how to protect themselves in a bad spot.

Being a father of five children and the oldest of five brothers it does instill a strong sense of family that coupled with standing up for what you believe in does give emotion to retribution if someone harms those that you love. Everyday the news is polluted where children have died due to drunk drivers, abuse, not being in seat belts and mean hate crimes. I consider myself very fortunate that I have never had to bury a child, I have had to bury a brother, he died in a car wreck driving way to fast. If I were to ever have a child harmed, hurt or scared by the hands or actions of someone trying get at me or through careless behavior hell hath no fury compared to what I would rain down on them not to mention that there would be no need for a trail if they are identified. I would be the one on trial like Samuel Jackson in the movie “A Time to Kill”.

So bob@yahoo.com be aware that I have pinpointed your location within a very targeted geographical area. If you wish to post a comment you will have to register an account. I am apologize to my regular readers for this and Troy when you come back around I like the idea of JedBuilt drop a note and say hello.