I was, quite frankly, shocked to hear this message coming from the heart and lips of a Black preacher... but then, I shouldn't be surprised that a child of the most high God, who preaches in season and out of season, can speak the truth. With race relations in this country lower than I've seen in decades, it is refreshing to know there are still some who can look beyond skin color, and see the truth.

The death of Trayvon Martin was tragic, but was it really George Zimmerman's fault? Does Trayvon's mother bear any responsibility for where her son is today? What of Travon's father? And what about Trayvon himself, does he own any responsibility for his own death, and where he is today?

Ahhhh,

Pinterest...

It's like having a filing cabinet just for pictures-- only not as clunk ugly --full of folders sorting everything by category. It's like a collection of playlists on your iPod; a category for workouts, for rainy days, for Summer, Winter, Autumn. All that and more, is Pinterest... but again, for pictures (click on the big red 'Pinterest' or Pic above to visit my page and see what I mean). Best thing? literally NO ONE can have an ugly Pinterest page. And few can actually manage to have an UNinteresting one.

I've had mine for close on a year now, and I've not managed to post much recently, but for those of you who don't have one of these free accounts, or do, and think it can only be used for collecting pictures...?

Think again.

Imagine going to your favorite restaurant's website. On that site they have what they're calling their 'online menu'. It's basically a boring table (for those of you conversant with HTML, you know what I mean) with boring, meaningless-to-a-new-patron descriptions. But imagine you're in the car with friends and you want to convince them to try this new restaurant you've discovered which IS using Pinterest as the format and platform for their online menu... One of your friends has her iPad with her and she looks up the menu online. Each meat or food category has it's own 'board,' each with it's own cover photo, and within each board each entree comes complete with a photo that links to a larger version, PLUS, many people who have eaten a particular dish have left comments describing how much they loved the dish, giving you their own personal review. Is that not a great marketing tool?

So why is it then, that the restaurants I'VE suggested this to looked at me with blank, lifeless stares? The idea is to grow your business, expand your client base, right? Then why not take advantage of every tool at your disposal... ESPECIALLY when they're free? And especially as Pinterest is fully integrated with Facebook AND Twitter?

Is it the build time? The work taking, uploading, and arranging photos? of structuring a Pinterest account? I'd be happy to do it for them... not for free, mind you, but I'd love to be service to, and help build my favorite restaurants business.

I want to be eating their fare ten, twenty years from now! So my motives are not entirely unselfish. I want some scratch in my wallet for the effort, and a long and mutually satisfying relationship with the Indian restaurant down the street, or that amazing Baja-style Mexican Restaurant on the other side of town.

Sometimes it takes an asteroid crashing to earth to get anyone to look up. Same is true in business, I suppose. Some folks have been doing the same thing for years, or decades, and see no need to change, until they find they're the only steak house in town that looks like a shack among all the new structures built up around it. It may still have great sales, but imagine what it could do if its owners only invested some time and effort into keeping up with the times and trends of a fast evolving community.

I learned very quickly in television sales that marketing, as I was taught, is more than simply walking in a business and asking if their interested in advertizing on TV. If all you're going to do is go in with the rate card memorized in your head and a standard pitch you're being made to thrown at everyone you meet... well, you'll get some fish to bite on that; some fish, after all, will bite at anything... but you may not hold on to that client for very long.  Clients, after all, are not fish-- they typically tell the difference between a pitch and a genuine desire to see and make their business grow. Some would-be clients don't see a need for all the new-fangled toys, you could throw at them. Some of them don't actually see the need for a website! And for those who think they know what they don't need? who don't think they need what you can do for them? Some of them may be right... they don't need you. And for the others, with ugly, poorly built websites getting next to zero traffic?

Just walk away.

You're not going to convince them. Your job, as a salesman, is to help new and existing clients keep up with the digital Jones. And you've got commissions to earn.

Pinterest is only one tool in your marketing tool-box, and there is so much more you can do with it. And your clients, assuming they want to earn even more sales, should be clambering all over each other to get you to help them remain relevant in this ever-changing marketplace.

I love Minecraft. I guess it would be better to say it's an obsession. To some this might seem a benign object with which to be obsessed, but to my wife-- "Are you still building that wall?" --it's a complete waste of time. And I agree. It is a waste of time, but that doesn't mean I love it any less.

I love to create things, build things, paint, write, what-have-you things. And there really isn't anything wrong with that, provided something 'solid' is actually achieved... something tangible.  A painting or a poem, for instance, are tangible things; paintings can be duplicated and the prints sold. Poems, too, can be compiled into book-form and sold. And that's money in the hand. But games like Minecraft, or Halo, or Call of Duty... these pursuits put nothing in your hand. You're basically digging a hole to no purpose.

Building an online business, however, CAN pay off, and will if you don't quit, and you invest time and effort, and reinvest a percentage of your earnings back into your business. I'll continue to sneak in thirty minutes to an hour of Minecraft now and then, but my focus now has to be in climbing out of holes.... not digging them.

My number one goal in life is to live a life worthy of Jesus. Period. Next comes, providing for my wife. She expects certain things of me every bit as much as Christ expects specific things of me. I fall flat on my face often... every day in fact. It's impossible that I could live perfectly... He knows it, and my wife should know it. But I have to be seen doing something constructive to not only provide for my wife and I, but also to provide for the work He has for me. Is Marketing where He really wants me? probably not, but I'm willing to try almost anything right now if it will allow me to rise above sea-level financially. I'm told I need to have faith, but it's hard to have faith when you everything you have is being ripped from your hands trying to make ends meet in THIS economy. And I'm getting very tired of treading water.

One also needs a few signposts along the way to insure he doesn't get lost, or can't find his way back to center. In Minecraft it's VERY easy to get lost on the surface. The horizon fades out very quickly the further afield you go; the graphics engine can keep up with all the terrain. So what I've resorted to doing is building obelisks... very, very tall obelisks, like the Washington monument in D.C. This way I can keep my bearings and know which direction to the last place something wonderful was built. In marketing, it's always a good idea to know where you started, and the many signposts along the way to anywhere you find yourself. It's easier to go back, see what worked, and re-plot your present course... doing what you know has already achieved results.

It take vision to build anything worthwhile. The ancient Egyptians had it, Rome had it, and Early American settlers and our founders had it.

With a clear and focused vision, it's impossible to get lost.

Do you have a vision for your future? Why not check out the Empower Network. Where else will you make 100% commissions in a growing company? Watch the video above and take that first step toward your vision of the future.

I'm learning a new way of looking at marketing online.  I've been blogging for six or seven years already-- mostly politics and religion --but I never knew how to make money doing it. That would be nice, right? to make money doing something I actually love doing? I like blogging, but more importantly, I love writing.

I just left a fifteen year career at a local television station. I started in what they called Master Control... I literally got paid to watch television; to make sure all those commercials ran on time and in their proper slot. If there was nothing good on CBS that evening, I had a book. So long as everything ran as scheduled, I got paid. About a year later I moved into production, doing the Five, Six and Ten O'clock news. I became proficient with cameras, audio, tapes, and graphics, but my strongest suit was graphics. It still is.

About eleven years of this I moved to the more creative side of a small market TV Station... Creative Services / Sales. Now, I was only the graphics guy. The ladies on the sales floor would come to me and ask for a Skyscraper or Supercube, with such-n-such specifications, and this call to action, etc., and there is went, straight onto our website. BAM! The station made money. What did the sales lady make? A very nice commission check. What did I make, 10 bucks an hour.

As I said, I became very good at this. But not just at building graphics but at video production and editing as well. The problem was, however, with all my skills I was struggling to make ends meet... still am, truth be told, but I'm not a quitter. I just need to know HOW to do a thing... ANY thing... and I can change that thing.

All my life I've had these talents; innate abilities that allowed me to pull the thoughts and imagination out of my mind and soul, and put them on paper, or canvas, or etched in stone and wood... I was born an artist. But I never learned how to market what I could do. But all that changes today. The Empower Network is going to show me how to change all that. First, by changing my immediate financial woes, and second, by showing me how to market my abilities... something that three years in the sales department in a small town television station never managed to do.

I'm staring at the fulcrum of my own personal paradigm shift

I'm about to start making 100% commissions on everything I sell for the Empower Network-- more than the paltry 10% the lovely ladies on the sales floor made. Want to know how I'm going to manage this feat? Watch the video at the top of this blog now!

Whether or not a "Christian" company will stand by it's principles.

Federal judges—including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—have refused to grant an injunction protecting the owners of Hobby Lobby from being forced to act against their Christian faith, those owners will be subject to federal fines of up to $1.3 million per day starting Tuesday for refusing to include abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan.

Will Hobby Lobby refuse and suffer the cost of fines, and let the Lord handle the case? Or will they cave for the sake of money?

The Obama Administrations argument? One, that...

"Americans lose their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion when they form a corporation and engage in commerce. A person’s Christianity, the administration argues, cannot be carried out through activities he engages in through an incorporated business... The second argument the administration makes to justify forcing Christians to act against their faith is more sweeping. Here the administration argues it can force a person to act against his religion so long as the coercion is done under the authority of a law that is neutral and generally applicable—in other words, as long as the law was not written specifically to persecute Christians as Christians, the government can use that law to persecute Christians.

As to the first argument, if a man chooses to create and build a business, he does this under the principles that reflect who is is, and what he values-- everything anyone does reflects his or her values to one degree or the other. In the case of Hobby Lobby, they've been in business far longer than Obamacare, and have operated under the principles of it's owners. So what the Obama Administration is demanding is that a man's (or his family) deny the principles he began his company with; principles that have guided his business and decisions heretofore. This is wrong. Period.

To the second, the government may not be consciously persecuting this company because it's foundation is on Christ, but that is the end result. Because of the founders' faith he must now, under law, provide access to a service that is anathema to any Christian worth his salt.

This isn't a case where a new startup must comply with existing law prior to opening its doors for business. Hobby Lobby has been in business for years, long before liberals decided to force their moral paradigm upon the people of this nation.

Will Hobby Lobby stand firm? Or will they cave? God has the power to preserve and sustain them in spite of Obamacare.