It really is a global economy with lots of opportunities for lots of people.

I recently had a professional voice over done by a provider on Fiverr.com.

Listen to this brilliant voice over on the video below – cost me just $5.  Amazing value.

Check out Fiverr.com lots of providers of different services – all for $5.

Marketing is so much easier these days for many, many businesses.

In the olden days* (* pre Internet), businesses had to go searching for their customers.

Now customers go searching for the business.

Marketing has changed from searching for customers to being found.

Can you be found if your customer searches for you?

Because that’s what business marketing is these days.

Before I went into business about 14 years ago, I was a ‘Nursing Sister’ for 11 years – and that was after doing my nursing training for 3 years.

I really enjoyed the nursing days, pretty rewarding sort of job and tons of variety.

I was consulting with a business today and explaining how his business was like my nursing days.

It’s all about solving problems.

As a nurse, you just solve problems all day long.

You see the problem, look at what’s causing it and take action to solve it.

• Patient has a low blood pressure – stick their legs up higher and increase the drip rate.
• Patient is vomiting after an anesthetic – give them a bowl and jab them in the ass with an anti-throw up potion – all you nurses reading……I know it’s an anti-emetic  ;o)
• Patient is dead – try and get ‘em alive again!  Good thinking, huh??!

All you’re doing in business, any business, is finding solutions for problems.

That’s it.

You’re Not Really Selling

So if you’re selling gym clothes, camping gear, contact lenses, car servicing, surfboards, energy bars, phones, pens, swimming goggles, whatever it is – you’re not really selling (or you shouldn’t be at least).

What you’re doing is solving problems.

Understand and embrace that and watch tons of people buy from you when you solve their problems.

(Just so you know, the biggest problem for most businesses is they don’t enough money.  As a marketing/web guy I show people how to make more money.  I solve that problem.)

Over the past week or so I’ve been planning out my business goals for 2012.

A fair bit of that involves what Google is doing because, whether we like it or not, Google is a big part of our business.

Here’s a video I did back in 2006 explaining the very basics of getting to the top of Google.

Wow, how times have changed.

The changes Google have implemented and are planning on implementing make the old strategies almost redundant.

The only serious competitor I can see to Google’s domination is Facebook.

Just about every business needs to have a presence on those 2 to be successful.

We’ve just launched a nice little web site for The Surfboard Warehouse, a great business that sells cheap surfboards from the Gold Coast.

The Surfboard Warehouse

Tim is the owner with his lovely partner Avalon, but the real boss is the beautiful Maevin.

Maevin is a little puppy dog (cough) who helps out around the store.

She’s more than keen for a pat as you wander by!

Former Manager of Kirrasurf

Tim has a bit of a background in knowing where to source the best surfboards at the best prices – you see, Tim spent a couple of years managing the all new Billabong owned Kirrasurf.

So if you’re looking for some super cheap quality surfboards for Christmas, head along to The Surfboard Warehouse at 1237 Gold Coast Highway, Palm Beach and Tim, Avalon and Maevin will look after you.

We’ve got a nice little business here and it sometimes seems we have clients everywhere.

It’s amazing how often we bump into our client’s products – when I was in Japan earlier in the year I caught the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) a few times.

I had some beef jerky and noticed it was made in Australia.  Didn’t take much notice of it other than that.

Just had the lads from Mariani Foods in to discuss some web work and they’re the guys who make the beef jerky on the bullet trains.  Cool!

My kids are heading back to ski Japan in a couple of months and have promised me faithfully that they’ll buy some of the Mariani Beef Jerky to get their sales up.

I live in a city that’s a bit of a party town.

Each year there’s a car race through one of the main parts of the city.

It annoys the hell out of residents as the traffic and parking become a nightmare, with a lot of streets shut down.

If the Main Beach Bakery had this done, then it’s brilliant marketing.  If not, it’s still pretty funny and something many people in Surfers Paradise can relate to.

We’ve just launched this ski Japan web site for our mate Mark.

Mark didn’t really want to launch it yet, but I was rather insistent.

You see, Mark wanted it to be absolutely perfect before he launched it.

I knew it wasn’t perfect – but it was good enough.

I wanted to launch it so we could start marketing it.

It’ll Never Be Perfect

No web site is ever perfect – they’re all just just heaving, living organisms

It doesn’t matter that we had such different goals.

It doesn’t matter that I ‘won’ the battle of “to launch/not to launch”.

What matters is we both have the success of his business as our motivation.

When you and the client agree on that, the rest is just details.