Steve Chilton is now being paid to close businesses like Chili's down after they go out-of-business.

Bill LaLonde had an ongoing feud with EBay for years.  They favored their sellers, even the ones that sold junk and misrepresented themselves.

Chuck Hultstrand has had clients with PayPal security issues.

Althea Bussert remembered when Home Depot and big box stores started selling the window shades but she knew she stood out with her quality of product. 

Bob Busch - You are not going to get what he sells in a Costco.  Not the quality and most definitely not the expertise.  He won't sell garbage.  

Dave Crissman is finding that we are becoming a very frugal shopping society.   This is the new "sexy thing"...looking for value.   We are not good at promoting each other's businesses.  We don't even know how to promote our group.  The internet is a good start.  I don't like the internet because I don't understand it and so I am scared of it.  But you need to have a website providing testimonial's, something a mere storefront can't offer.  You need to tell the public why you are better than Costco.  If you are waiting for the Yellow Pages to work for you, don't bother. 

Jim Bache - I believe it is more than your story.  First, you have to get people to your website.  And then you have to WOW them.  It has nothing to do with your product being different from anyone else's because they are all generic.

Gus Dekavallas - Everyone knows MetLife.  When they changed their marketing strategy - now the "If" factor - they get so many leads from it.

Mark Howard believes the difference with this group is that we are after repeat business, quality and integrity.  Think back when we were younger.  Is this a generational thing or a maturity thing?

There is no loyalty with the younger generation.  They don't care about integrity.  They are wired differently.

Fred Vandervort follows the plan set forth by his franchise.  It continues to work.

Greg Stewart - Ten years ago our choices of marketing were limited.  Today our choices are so huge.  You have to have a large marketing budget to have an impact.  Most of us can't keep up with it.  We just dropped a lot of advertising because it just doesn't work.

Erin Jaick's doesn't believe it is too expensive to market.  Twitter is free.  MySpace is free.  It just takes time.  We don't even have an advertising budget.  If I heard about a company I would definitely go to the internet. 

Gus Dekavallas - It depends on the type of business you do.  It is easy to give them the brochure.

Chuck Hultstrand believes Erin is right.  It is very inexpensive.

Nick Mawrenko believes everyone in this group should have a FaceBook and MySpace presence along with MABE and crosslink with each other.

Dave Crissman belonged to ToFixIt.  The marketing was good but the integrity was horrible.  The cost to belong was outrageous.

Steve Chilton agrees that these are good ideas but it takes money to do these things.   Even though the product is free, you need to pay someone to administer it.

What do you have on MySpace?  Erin doesn't sell retail right now.  But they have to have an image on their.  It's a networking thing.  It is like a blog.  You put your updates on there.  Your logo, your call to action, etc.  Tell them where to go to buy.

Erin was asked to send links to all of her online presences.  She was also asked to explain guerilla marketing.

Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing tactics are unexpected and unconventional; consumers are targeted in unexpected places, which can make the idea that's being marketed memorable, generate buzz, and even spread virally. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.  (Wikipedia)

You need to be Googling yourself to see what people are saying about you.  I know people that have lost big jobs because of negative comments that steered away the clients.

Dave Crissman (speaking as a board member) - I like meetings like this...spontaneous and pertinent.   Is this a big deal to you or do you just want to do it now and then?  And how many people are afraid to stand up in front of the group and run a meeting like this?

Guy Sawyer - During tough times this type of meeting is very important. 

We saddle the president for 6 months to run the meeting and be entertaining.  Maybe the expert on a subject should stand up in front of the group and engage us in discussions like today.

Denver Johnson recommends that we also bring in experts to talk about things.

Dave Crissman learns more and makes more business decisions based on discussions we have here in this group.  It isn't the dues.  It is the Friday mornings.  I love groups of this size because we can have this kind of dialogue. 

Lin Schmelzer would like to see this as more of a working business meeting rather than a social meeting.  However, not even because of the times, we need to have far more of these open discussion type meetings.