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.

Overall the trip and conference participation was a real learning experience. We were even able to land a few new Automotive SEO clients and make many connection with people I have only met virtually.  If you want to see more of a conference round up please visit the post I did about it at Drivingsales.com.

When I first started my company, that provides online marketing services for car dealers, the goal was to be a turn key solution.  I soon realized that was not a valid business plan and narrowed down our known offerings to three core products, automotive seo services, dealer micro sites and craigslist inventory distribution, during the sharp dive in the dip.

This will allow us to become the best at what we do.

We are still working through the dip in our business and it has been trying to say the least.  Some days it would seem easier to go back to trading my time for a regular paycheck versus: looking for ways to scale to reach more customers, hiring people to perform tasks such as writing and AR/AP, looking for ways to reach more customers, attending networking events and sharing knowledge, looking for ways to streamline mundane tasks or have someone else do them, keeping service levels high, ad nausem.  However, there is no real reward in that for me.  So I have been driving on through this period.

Through the sacrifices my family and sanity has made the light is starting to shine, the rewards are becoming evident.  The focus has moved away from developing a model to looking for the best systems to insure that our customers get the service they deserve and so we can scale to increase our client base.  This is where persistence has paid off in my eyes.  I am grateful to be at this point.

Sorry for the lack of recent updates, you can probably tell what has been taking up most of my time.

So yes I struck the first blow kinda, but now he has turned to implying that I am a convicted felon in the state of Georgia.

Not real sure who he is referencing in the other declarations on his site, but it does look like he does have many enemies from his business practices past and current. I did check the GA database for felony convictions in my name and was alarmed when I did find that I was being reported as a convicted felon.

Having held professional licenses in the State of Georgia and a dealers license, which is impossible with a felony conviction, it was not the first time this has popped up.  While it is true I was once charged for 1st degree forgery in 1992, at the age of 22, I was completely exonerated.

The charges were brought by an ex spouse of my mother in an act of vengeance to get back at her for their differences and for me signing a charge slip in his name as  I was instructed to do by him.  Technically it was probably forgery, morally the charges were wrong.

After realizing this information is being passed around by Brian Pasch that I am a convicted felon and that I was listed in the state of GA database as such I contacted the authorities to find why this was still coming up, here is what I discovered:

After explaining to the prosecutor and my court appointed attorney, I was 22 and could not afford a real one, what happened they worked out a plea agreement.  Once it was presented to the judge and he asked me for my story.  The judge told me that I was in a no win situation and it would waste the courts time and understood why the plea was entered as such.  He then altered my plea, which as for a misdemeanor, to that of first offender so it would not stay on my record, whereas the misdemeanor would.

I was given unsupervised probation and a suspended fine and as told to “keep my nose clean”, which I did, and it would be like it never happened.   The reason I was still listed in the database is because the probation office never filed the proper paper work saying I completed probation without incident.

I have since contacted the courts and the probation office to sort out this mess.  It will be gone soon, like it never happened, and this blog post will be the only documentation of the facts.  It is unfortunate on my part I was not more proactive about this 17 years ago or it would of never come to surface.  I have had to document this before to get a mortgage brokers license, insurance license and dealers license, and I have been registered to vote my entire adult life.  I just thought that having to document it was part of the process.

Officials in the court house and probation office have emphatically apologized to me over this, including a judge.

Am I a hater?  Sure I am.  Anybody who gives misinformation and makes my job harder deserves to be called out.  Somebody that has played on donors sympathies, tried to profit from 9-11-01, then make good by donating money to help cover it up and then hide association (before and after)  makes me a hater².

If you find Brian Pasch distributing information with my “felony conviction” please let me know.  He has been notified by email and fax as of this posting and will receive certified mail in the next few days as to his errors and the potential legal ramifications for him distributing false information.

My business has grown beyond the point of being able to manage it from my home office. So I have rented my new space. I have eight employees with 6 being local so it was an overdue need. I will slowly start the transition over the next few days and be fully in by Monday.

This is a big step for us and I am already glad we made it.

This is pretty boring to most people but that is how I earn my living.  There is something about meeting with people face to face that you have only met previously on the phone or online.  It helps bring that bond closer or drive a wedge further through it.  Fortunately I did not see the latter happening on this trip.

I did break down and purchase two pieces of technology that I felt I could live without.  A GPS system and Sirius radio.  They sure made the trip much easier especially traveling through New Jersey and Washington DC.

This trip also helped me reflect on ways to improve my business and how to refine current offerings in addition to some of the great things coming on the horizon.  It also helped me realize I need to pay more attention on personal marketing.  One of my biggest deficiencies is how I market myself.  My business has been completely built on networking and inbound marketing.  Neither are bad ways to build a business, but at the same time my marketing properties are severely lacking.

Spending time with your thoughts and others that you have never met sure have given me a lot to reflect on.  It has also caused me to acknowledge that I need to build a personal marketing plan and put it in place.  It is really easy to do for clients but when it comes to doing it for myself it sure can be tough at times.

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.

I have recently entered a strong debate in a niche that I am not really a part of. The make money niche of online marketing. There has been a lot of hoopla about downline integrity and the formation of the Downline Integrity Brigade and usually a debate like that I would extricate myself, but I could not refuse. Hindsight being 20/20 I may not of reacted in an such an overly verbose stance but I do believe in standing up for what is right and cannot stand it when people take shots at others because they disagree with their opinion.

The bad thing is it caused me to lose some focus on other projects and now I must play catch up. Sigh…

Working for a car dealer is instant gratification with an extreme sacrifice on my family.  Working on my online properties has a healthy combination if instant gratification and building long term success while not sacrificing my family in the process.  Granted working for a car dealer can also help achieve long term goal but the price I must pay is to realize them in the near term is not worth it.  My kids will only be kids for so long and once those days are gone I cannot ever recoup them.

So for now I am living for the minute with my family while building online properties that will allow me the freedom to enjoy their company and build a solid income now and in the future!

The bad thing it was almost 3 am before I got in!  So I slept to 1 pm!  Oh well long nites make for short days.

I am currently teaming up with another internet marketer to build a member blogging site.  It is going to be labor intensive and rewarding.  It is going to be geared to helping others to market products and get the word out about things that matter to them.  A blogging platform on crack.

This coupled with several other online projects is going to keep my plate full.  Let’s face it a full plate is better than an empty plate or no plate at all.  I do have trouble explaining concepts to people who do not “get it” so I have teamed up with someone who has the patience required of a teacher.  So with our new project I will working on the back end and promotion and he will work on the instructional aspects of our new program.