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.

Family is another story.  Kids, spouse and parents that are dependent on me will have a void that cannot be filled in my absence.  I don’t feel like they will have any real problems but they all seem like this is a life changing event for them.  In the past I have done very little travel with work, usually only 1 or 2 times per year except when I was managing disaster recovery projects after Hurricane Katrina.  Now that we are a mid size player in helping car dealers with online marketing I am traveling more frequently and see even more excursions in the future.

Everyone will learn to cope, personally I don’t care for a lot of travel and being away from my family and business, but it will be required for us to grow our business to the next level.  My wife is completely understanding and remembers the year I spent in the Gulf away from the family like it was yesterday.  The kids are a different story.

They have unfounded fears that daddy will be going away like he did a few years ago, managing a contract with FEMA.  No mount of reassurance can convince the smaller ones.  My seven year old thinks it is cool that daddy is going away on business because he remembers very vividly each and every prize that daddy brought home on his returns, so he is glad  I am traveling.  My four year old on the other hand has attempted to unpack my suitcase a couple of times already.  He tells me that if I stay home I can just not go to the office and spend next week with him.  My eleven year old is just pissed that he can’t go to Vegas with daddy and the adult children pretty much hold the same view.

The past few weeks has been fairly eventful for our family, the birth of a new granddaughter on September 21st and the discovery that our seven year old has Asperger’s Syndrome.  The realization that Alex is an Aspie has placed some strains on our family with us trying to develop new routines at home and with him at school.  These are positive it’s just a change for us.  The new balance we are trying to create will be disrupted in my absence, Alex could care less, but I have been the liaison with the school and doctors and helping develop the new routines at home with the other family members.

I just home that this trip proves to be rewarding for our business, after all it is disrupting a lot of lives which are all dependent on the success of the business.  On my return I am bringing in a new employee, my daughter, another journey will start there as well..

Doing research on this condition, notice the non use of the word disease or affliction, I have learned a great deal about it and myself.  The biggest thing is it is not the end of the world.  My son sees the world through a different view than most people do and personally I share some of the same traits.  They say it is genetic which explains it even more.

Some common traits displayed by people with Asperger’s Syndrome

• They generally have normal or above normal IQ’s.
• Impaired in social situations.  Many things said and heard are taken out of context.  The reading of social ques is almost nonexistent.
• Repetitive patterns of behavior and obsession with activities.
• Clumsiness and terrible handwriting.

I meet all of the criteria listed above and happen to be high functioning.   While my child’s situation is  more sever the similarities give me hope that all will turn out well for him.

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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.

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.

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.

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.