In these days of incredible struggle for small to medium sized business owners, the Port Angeles Isagenix business may be the perfect business in the perfect storm.  This recession is killing bricks-and-mortar businesses left and right. I don’t know the precise number of Port Angles businesses that have closed, but it is a huge number since 2006.

The challenge of running a large business, whether it is a retail business downtown or a B&B, is that you can kill yourself trying to make a living, working six and seven days a week, paying taxes with what little profit there is, and not knowing what the next six months will bring. I’ve talked to many Port Angeles business owners who either have closed the doors or are talking about closing the doors because of the high cost of running a business these days. The recession is just the straw that is breaking them.

This is one of the major reasons why so many husbands and wives in their 50s and 60s are joining Isagenix as home businesses. The cost is low, the income is potentially very high and the residual income grows. The company has over 60 millionaires and over $1 billion in sales. Earning $4,000 to $10,000 a month from home is something thousands of associates are doing already. Doctors, Chiropractors, Attorneys, and many professionals quickly see why the business makes sense compared to the high stress and high cost of doing what they are doing now.

Port Angeles Isagenix Home Based Business

Network marketing is making a comeback, and finally there is a business with integrity from the top of the company to the associates working from their homes, and the products have integrity. If you are so inclined, you can learn more at:  Port Angeles Isagenix Business.

Port Angeles Isagenix Business

You can watch a video and get involved in the business if you are a small business owner who wants to supplement your business income and build a residual income into your retirement years.  Now is the time, and people in their 40s and 50s and 60s need the best nutrition, healthy heart vitamins and supplements, and nutritional cleansing that will help remove the toxic substances that build up in our bodies and cause us so much biological stress.

Having been an attorney and businessman my whole life, as well as a business adviser to hundreds of businesses, this is a no-brainer for me at my age. It’s interesting how good nutrition has gotten more important to me in my 50s.  If you’d like to know more about how to get the products or join the business, you can call me anytime at 360-775-5424.

Buying and Selling Real Estate in the Rain Shadow

The contents include these sections on local Sequim and Port Angeles real estate issues:

Chapter 1 Things Buyers Ought to Know
Chapter 2 Building Your Dream Home
Chapter 3 Things Sellers Ought to Know
Chapter 5 Dual Agency
Chapter 6 Real Estate Agents
Chapter 7 Legal Traps for the Unwary
Chapter 8 Foreclosures
Chapter 9 There’s Much More Under the Rocks

Did George Washington sleep here?

Not really , but did you ever wonder what it would be like to stay in George Washington’s very own home?

American patriots can now experience a real sense of history with all the comfort of modern day amenities by staying at George Washington Inn. Washington State’s oceanfront replica of Mount Vernon is built in a rural setting near the Olympic National Park. This luxury bed and breakfast inn is fast becoming a destination of its own and offers endless day trips on the Olympic Peninsula, Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands.

For more information on this exciting new destination between Sequim and Port Angeles, go to George Washington Inn.

Website

• George Washington Inn

Social Networking

• Twitter
• Facebook

Local Bed and Breakfast Association

• Olympic Peninsula Bed and Breakfast Association

Membership in the local Chambers of Commerce

• Port Angeles
• Sequim
• Forks

Official Washington State Tourism Website

• Experience WA

Most Dominant Bed and Breakfast Directory on the Internet

• BedandBreakfast.com

Internet Travel Advisor

• TripAdvisor

Why do so many Americans (and the vast majority of politicians) believe that government is all these things, our beginning and our end?

Why?

Our wise founding fathers did not believe that.  They believed government was the greatest threat to individual liberty.  How have we swung 180 degrees with the opposite mentality?

This idea that government is our solution and our hope has permeated every area of American culture and life.  Most Americans have been duped into believing that government ownership or control (either directly or indirectly)  is the ultimate answer to:

1. our education woes
2. our mortgage market
3. our real estate market
4. our financial security
5. our economy
6. our corporate culture
7. our automobile industry
8. our banking system
9. our private industry
10. our retirement system
11. our health care system
12. and hundreds of other areas that effect and control our lifestyles, our incomes, our children’s futures, and so on.

And in the last few months we have seen the largest acquisition of private industry by the federal government in the history of this great nation.

If you could devise a plan to destroy this nation from the inside out, could anyone have come up with a better plan than the current administration?

The answer to the health of small businesses and to America’s health, in my humble opinion, is not to legislate answers giving government more power and more control over our businesses and our personal freedom, but to get out of our way, and let small businesses flourish.  To government and to government experts and to quasi-government officials and experts, I say, “Leave us alone.  We know better than you how to run our businesses and raise our children.”

What do you think?  Do we have any brave souls who wish to express their opinions openly and intelligently?

If you own a business, and you have struggled with the high cost of advertising in print newspapers and magazines, join the club. While the effectiveness of traditional print advertising has dramatically fallen, at the same time the cost has dramatically risen. What a dilemma for business owners and for traditional newspapers. Today, I bring you the $49 offer.

I’ve created a powerful Internet newspaper that can help you connect with customers in these challenging times. This news site is not just the wave of the future: it is the present. Who isn’t using the Internet to search for . . . well, anything and everything?

What we’ve done on this site is create what everyone wants–an easy to navigate news site with nice photos and videos, free classified ads, a free business directory, human interest stories, and a sense of community. Sequim and Port Angeles residents now have exactly that.

If you’re going to spend valuable advertising dollars, you’ve got to have a sense that your advertising is going to connect with a lot of potential customers. Right?

In the past your print advertising may have gone something like this. You pay $450 or $600 for a medium sized advertisement that shows up for one day only in a newspaper. The best day for a newspaper ad is Sunday. The second best day is arguably Wednesday. You spend a lot of time getting your ad crafted with good script, and you get just the right photo or graphics for your ad. You write the check to the newspaper or magazine company.

Then you hope upon hope that someone will respond to the ad. Days go by, and no one has called. No one has said anything about even seeing the ad, except you have a friend who emailed you and said they saw your ad, and that they liked it.

Maybe one person called, but they were just curious and had no need for your services or your products. It was an interesting 20 minute phone call, but it sure didn’t make you any money.

When all is said and done, you don’t feel all that good about wasting $450 to $600.

What you want is advertising that actually reaches a lot of people, not just one day, but 24/7 for 365 days throughout the year for the same price as a one day newspaper ad. Now that would be something!

That’s what this online news site is all about for local businesses. When you advertise on this site, here are the benefits for you and your business:

1. Your products or services are advertised 24/7 on the Internet, so anyone can read your ad at any hour, even at 11:30 at night from the comfort of their own home. Do we charge readers a subscription fee? Absolutely not. Everything is free for our readers, which only makes your advertising more powerful as it reaches more people.

2. Your online ad runs 365 days a year, not just one day. Your ad is working for you even when you are sleeping.

3. Your online potential customers include people who would never see your one-time ad in a print advertisement. In fact, your online ad multiplies the number of eyeballs that will see your business by an order of magnitude, maybe 100 to 1,000 times as many, not just once but all year long.

4. Your online ad is far more powerful than a banner that another online service might offer at a high monthly rate. People who search online for information are not looking for banners they can click on. They are looking for something, and that something is not a banner, nor is it an annoying pop-up ad. We do some banners as you can see, but the real power in what we do are the educational articles written with persuasive script and links to your business, all optimized for the Internet. More about that later.

5. Your online ad is far more powerful than bulk mailing letters or flyers. A mailing is a broadcast to the general population, most of whom have absolutely no interest in your product or service. Statistically, it has been said that 99% of your bulk mailing is a waste of money. You’re lucky if you get a 1% response. Your online ad is something everyone can find in a Google search throughout the entire year. A one-time bulk mailing will cost as much or more than an entire year’s advertising on this site.

6. A newspaper ad may have a wide distribution, let’s say 20,000, but that doesn’t mean 20,000 people will see your $500 ad on page D-13 tucked in between two dozen other similar looking black and white ads. A large number of newspapers sit on grocery store shelves, and the ones that don’t sell get recycled, along with your paid ad. Your online ad will be searchable on the Internet with search engines like Google. Your specific ad will show up when your potential customers are searching for exactly what you sell. We cannot guarantee anything when it comes to search engine results, but see the results of a recent client below. Instead of broadcasting to people who have no interest in your product or service, you are broadcasting to people who are looking for you. Don’t you want to filter your advertising dollars to those most likely to buy?

7. Your ad online includes a link to your business website, so your potential customers can click the mouse and they’re instantly looking at your product or service.

8. This online news site uses the latest search engine optimization techniques to make sure we reach as many people as possible, especially those who are looking for what you sell. Beware of techies who claim they can do this for their clients. Many of those clients have never seen any results. Want to see an example of the optimization techniques we are using? [Call Chuck for specific examples of what he is doing successfully--not disclosed here as it is top secret.] Again, there are no guarantees we can perform miracles for everyone, but can you see the power of what we are doing and the application for your business? And at $49 a month, this is ridiculously inexpensive!

Or type in “sequim kitchen equipment” and you’ll see our ad for Olympic Restaurant Equipment show up at the top of the search results. Wouldn’t you like to show up at the top. Try typing many different combinations of sequim and kitchen and equipment and appliances, etc., and you will keep seeing our newspaper ad.

9. This online news site is promoted on other sites on the Internet, multiplying the effectiveness of your ad by bringing in even more potential customers. These promotions reach both local residents and out-of-staters. We also promote this site with some targeted personal mailings to increase local awareness and readership. In other words, we spend money where you don’t have to.

10. Your ad copy is not just an ad, like all the other obnoxious ads that people love to avoid. Your ad is actually an article, carefully written with interesting facts about your product or service, and with a human interest aspect, making your article excellent reading. It includes good photos and graphics, and professionally crafted sales script. Words do matter in ad copy. Why is an article more effective than a sales ad? What works best on the Internet are educational articles. This is what people are searching for. What we do is write that article, the kind of information about your product or service that people are searching for, and we use powerful and effective words to address their interests. When people find a good article and nice photos on a website that is easy to navigate, they don’t mind at all if the article includes links to your website or your contact information. This is the most powerful form of advertising on the Internet today.

11. As part of this news service, we also offer a classified ad service that is free for you to use anytime for your business or personal use. The reason these classified ads are a value is that the site is designed and built around what consumers want. They want classified ads online that are easy to navigate, free to use, easy to post items for sale, and optimized for the search engines. These classifieds are very powerful, and you can include posts about your business, about sales, about events, and you can even include photos. Your description is not limited like a print newspaper. As long as you don’t write a book, you are welcome to write detailed descriptions, but remember consumers won’t read anything too long. You can post some of your business inventory, but if you indiscriminately post many of the same items, you will lose credibility with the buying public. Remember that the attention span of an Internet viewer is about 15 seconds, unless you really engage them in what you are selling. The classified ads also allow you to add a link to your own website. These are also specifically designed just for Sequim and Port Angeles. That means you will be marketing to a niche right here, your customers.

12. In addition to this powerful article advertising your business on the Internet, you have the privilege to write a series of articles about your subject, provided your articles meet our submission guidelines, and provided your articles are educational in nature, which is what people want. You may write up to one article per week with photos, and these articles will increase your presence on the Internet even more. You begin to build credibility with your readers and can substantially increase traffic to your own website or to your brick and mortar business. (Of course, our editor has absolute discretion to reject or edit any submissions.)

13. Our staff includes a number of authors and contributors coming on board to write about niche subjects in Sequim and Port Angeles, including professionals overseeing the articles and website.

14. Unlike print newspaper or magazine ads where it’s hard or impossible to track the results of your advertising campaigns, if you have a website, you can track every lead that comes from this ad on the Internet. In other words, we offer advertising with measurable results.

15. All of this is yours for an entire year! Did I mention we also give you a free business directory online?

If this service is worth 100 to 1,000 times a one-time advertisement in a print newspaper on a Sunday, you would expect it to cost much more, but we are offering an introductory price of $500 for this entire package. It should be $5,000, but it is not.

Here’s my offer.

I originally came up with an incredible offer to local Sequim and Port Angeles businesses–advertise for an entire year on this site for only $500.00. That was an unbelievable offer, and many have recognized that it is worth many times that, perhaps as much as $5,000 for the full year, but almost every business in the area is hurting for cash flow. So I decided to make this powerful Internet resource very affordable for all small business owners.

If you sign up right away you pay only $49 per month for one year. No set-up fees. Just $49 each month for one year, and then at the end of the year you decide if you want to renew. How easy is that?

Most people spend more than that on their monthly Internet service or their cable or satellite TV.

This is a limited time offer, and you can be sure the rate will go up, so if you want to start using the most powerful form of advertising today, and you want to take advantage of one of the most affordable advertising options available today, email me or call me.

Ask about our video advertisements for your business.

Chuck Marunde at chuckmarunde@gmail.com
(360) 775-5424

Sequim and Port Angeles business owners kicked off a celebration of success this week at the Sauer Kraut in the Rock Plaza in Sequim. Kim Vogler, founder and CEO of Family Bundles, shared the good news of the success of the first 12 weeks since launching Family Bundles in Sequim and Port Angeles. She shared the results and benefits to the 40 businesses who have become part of the Family Bundles profit sharing rewards program.

The Family Bundles program is dedicated to supporting and promoting small to medium size businesses that have always been the foundation of our local economy. The program gives local merchants an opportunity to compete with large global companies and corporate super stores without deep discounts. The program rewards consumers with credits and helps merchant partners build and maintain a loyal audience at a very reasonable cost. Local businesses will be glad to learn that member businesses participate in a group profit sharing program that rewards the distribution of cards to shoppers and pays residuals on a monthly basis. Family Bundles aggressively promotes local business members participating in the program in the local media through radio, TV, print media, billboards, and in Sequim and Port Angeles News Online, which you are now reading.

Kim Vogler reported to local business members on Monday evening the success of their first 12 weeks since launching. Forty local businesses are members of Family Bundles, although only 23 are active by distributing membership cards. Even Kim, who has understood the vision of Family Bundles better than anyone, and who knows what this unique and powerful business model can do for local businesses and consumers, expressed her surprise and delight at the numbers, which exceeded even her projections.

Total retail sales for May were $42,129, $53,506 for June and $60,000 for July. Since July is not over yet, she is projecting $70,000 in retail sales for the month of July. This is a total of $165,635 in retail sales for local businesses in just a little over 12 weeks, and only among 23 local businesses. This is an average of $7,201.52 in retail sales per business.

Local businesses share in the profits, and Family Bundles spends money on advertising to promote them. Kim said, “Family Bundles returns 88% of our revenue back to you, your customers, and for paid advertising on your behalf.”

Kim explained, “When you consider that this was accomplished through the use of bus boards, radio and a few special promotions, which were promoted on Sequim and Port Angeles News Online, we can expect a huge increase due to the heavy schedule that is planned for our TV campaign, as well as a fundraiser that will soon be launched in support of the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society.”

The Family Bundles program is unlike any other business program or networking effort that relies on traditional marketing techniques. Family Bundles still relies upon solid business and marketing principles, but has created a powerful way for businesses to benefit from the purchases of customers who shop at member businesses. When customers shop with a Family Members card, benefits come back to businesses that participate in several ways.

1. Through group profit sharing,
2. Through the redemption process,
3. Through increased frequency of personal advertising messages on cards and with other businesses, and
4. Through institutional advertising that Family Bundles does for business members.

The response of local business owners at the presentation was clearly enthusiastic and about having the opportunity to participate in the Family Bundles program to boost and strengthen their business revenue and create future residual income.

Chuck Marunde, as Editor of Sequim and Port Angeles News Online, shared the two key benefits to Family Bundles members who advertise in the online newspaper. First, it is the least expensive advertising a business can do right now to reach large numbers of people, since Family Bundles members can advertise for an entire year for only $250.00. A unique and powerful marketing system is in place that is much more powerful than traditional online banner ads. Second, this form of advertising uses the most powerful communication tool in the world today–the Internet, and it does it with advanced search engine optimization. Americans of all ages are using the Internet to research their next purchase, and that’s where businesses need to be.” Chuck shared that the online newspaper at SequimNews.net is now receiving over 50,000 article views per month. “The response of local residents and business owners in Sequim and Port Angeles has surprised even me.”

Whether you are a consumer or small business owner, you can learn more about Family Bundles by going to their website at Family Bundles. When you shop in Sequim, Port Angeles, or Port Townsend, ask the business owner if he is a member of Family Bundles, because if he is, you receive credits as a shopper that you can use to purchase products from other member businesses.

As Kim likes to say, “When we all work together, everyone wins!” There’s no question about it–Family Bundles’ first 12 weeks is clearly a huge win for consumers and local businesses.

]]> http://portangelesvision.com/port-angeles-businesses/port-angeles-businesses-promote-each-other/feed/ http://portangelesvision.com/news-and-opinion/castles-in-the-sand/ http://portangelesvision.com/news-and-opinion/castles-in-the-sand/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:47:18 +0000 Chuck Marunde http://portangelesvision.com/?p=599 It’s time for adult sand castles in Port Angeles. The North American Masters Invitational Arts in Action continues this week on the beach near the Port Angeles dock. In this photo below Dan Belcher’s “World of Wonders” showcases his artistic flair in his fifth year competing here. He began sand sculpting in 1990. In his day job Dan is an urban designer and illustrator.

This next sand castle is “Australia’s Great Barrier Reef” built by Damon Farmer, who began sand sculpting in 1975 in Florida. Damon designs theatrical sets, carvers and sand sculpts.

“Being Loved” by Fred Mallett from Port Aransas, Texas, who is competing in his fifth year.

This sand castle is “Mother” by Sue McGrew of Tacoma. Sue is the youngest competitor at 24 years old.

“Chicken Itza” by Delayne Corbett of Victoria, British Columbia, has been carving for about 20 years.

Doc Reiss birthed this “Shark” in the sand in his spare time when he wasn’t working real estate back at the office.

If you haven’t come down on the beach to see these works of art, you still have time through Saturday.

Photos by Chuck Marunde.

In the past six months I’ve talked with hundreds of Sequim and Port Angeles business owners, and there is a clear consensus on the subject of marketing and advertising. They are confused and frustrated. They are frustrated because what used to work doesn’t work as well now. Advertising budgets have shrunk as the economy has contracted and business has fallen off. More than ever before, small business owners are challenged with where to spend their meager advertising budget.

Here’s what jumped out at me after talking with hundreds of business owners: the vast majority do not know what the priority checklist is for advertising, from the least effective to the most effective. As a result, they are shooting from the hip with their advertising decisions (and money). I watched one business owner spend $350 on a totally wasted ad that produced nothing, and the same business owner has pulled the trigger on several other wild advertisements costing hundreds and now thousands of dollars. These particular efforts produced nothing but a smaller bank account and zero business. The business owner later said after some reflection, “I feel stupid. I wasted good money. I don’t know what I was thinking. Each time someone convinced me to spend the money on their advertising it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

That’s the way it is when you are in business for yourself. If you don’t know where you’re going and exactly how you intend to get there, and if you don’t understand the marketing and advertising methods and their relative effectiveness, you can be sold almost anything. Trial and error is not a good way to build a business, and it certainly is not a good method to survive this current recession.

There are traps for the unwary business owner here. One trap is pride or arrogance. A business owner who thinks they know how to market their product or service (if in fact they do not), is his own worst enemy, and there’s nothing sadder than a great product or service in the hands of a business owner that self-destructs.

The more common trap is being sold by persuasive salesmen who are selling their specific advertisements, and purporting to advise the business owner on how to market their product or service comprehensively. For years magazine ad salesmen sold ads to business owners with persuasive arguments that their magazine was the best place to place an ad today. The truth is the vast majority of those salesmen did not have knowledge and experience to advise a business owner on comprehensive marketing. The salesman wanted to sell one ad or one package. He did not care whether the business owner succeeded or failed because of a poor comprehensive long-term marketing plan. When was the last time an ad salesman asked you if you what your long-term marketing plan was?

Here’s the point of this article. If you are a small business owner, don’t rely on someone selling newspaper ads to advise you on what is best for your business. Don’t rely on someone selling magazine ads, or radio spots, or TV spots, or Internet banners, or some new gimmick. Each of these salesmen has a goal, and it is to close the sale with you and sell you their advertising. Don’t forget almost none of these salesmen are experts on marketing, sales, and advertising outside their little niche.

Do yourself a huge favor, and don’t make expensive advertising decisions as though you were shooting from the hip without aiming. Running your business is not supposed to be by trial and error. Get with someone who can really help you put together a long-term and effective marketing and advertising plan. One last caution here. Almost all ad salesmen claim to know marketing and sales and to be experts who are there to help you. Be discerning and wise, and be sure your marketing consultant is discerning and wise, and that he’s not just trying to sell you his product.

Chuck Marunde is a business owner, real estate attorney (ret.), a real estate Internet broker, an author, and marketing consultant. Chuck can be reached by email at chuckmarunde@gmail.com.