Some things are better done in private

I have received flack from people in the automotive industry over pages I controlled on squidoo.com, I have since transferred them to someone who is learning affiliate marketing.  They are starting their squidoo empire on concentrating of special financing terms in the automotive industry.

Just based on interactions I have had from a dealership employee regarding Tulsa special financing over pages I controlled is what prompted me to make the transfer and get out of the automotive affiliate marketing arena.  It is a tough decision for me, but managing the top automotive blog, regarding automotive marketing, has caused me to make this decision.

That affiliation will undoubtedly propel my place in the automotive industry to the next level.

squidoo.com, automotive blog, special financing

Brand Dilution - Overcoming It

Almost daily I get calls from non decision makers in the auto industry asking for advice and help. Tonight I had a long talk with one of my best friends, who I met online, about maximizing my presence. One thing is that I have found is that the people who sign the check in the car business are not the ones looking online for answers.

One of the biggest things I took away from this conversation is sometimes you have to give a lot to take a little. This is ok and is how things work and it produces good karma. He attributes that to being one of the top Suzuki Auto dealers in the US.

In the past I was very giving with my time and knowledge and have realized that people will suck as much of it as you are willing to give. While at the same time they are put off when you ask for a return of a favor or even money. Free consulting makes you a broke consultant and I am tired of doing that while at the same time some of that has to be given freely to get your name in front of other that do sign the checks.

Now instead of diluting my brand I will concentrate on a focused direction to show people how to market their business locally and make my services available to them.

brand building, paul rushing, suzuki auto

Brand Conversion - One piece at a time....

When I was an Internet Sales Manager I had created several lading pages to have consumers contact me directly to save money on their next vehicle purchase. Now I have a tremendous amount of content out there that I must either convert to affiliate marketing or just value added content to those people who find it.

When I was the ISM we carried the Hyundai product and I LOVED IT. So I concentrated there in my personal online branding. Now that I no longer anticipate ever working at a car dealership I have started that conversion process. The first of many pages that needs editing is my Hyundai Dealer page. I just hope that it does not lose visitors since I reworked it.

hyundai dealer, hyundai dealership, hyundai branding

Garbage creates more garbage

I am working real hard to build my brand and to try to keep things that may seem negative to others out of my personal content publishing. Some things I have not been doing real well is giving links to others in my content. Usually when I blog about something I reference my own content and not do a good job of attributing others.

So I have set a new goal for myself. Every time I reference my own content I will make sure I reference two other sources if it is on properties that I control. This will accomplish a couple of things.

• notify other blogs and individuals that I am referencing their content and help increase traffic to my properties
• increase the search engine trust my properties have
• bring better value to those who view my content
• better establish "My Brand"

What does this have to do with "Garbage"? Well it means when I see garbage and blog about it for now on I will link to it, regardless. I just have not figured out a way to call out BS from car guys in such a way as they can save face and not appear hyper critical. I just have to make a choice on providing real value vs playing my cards close to my chest and getting people to pay for the knowledge.

garbage content, paul rushing, building a brand,

Diluting My Brand? Maybe, Maybe not!

Had a long conversation this evening about brand dilution.  There are so many ways this can hurt, while at the same time it also helps build market saturation.  My biggest product right now is Paul Rushing without a defined product offering.  That does not stop engagement.  Almost daily I have people reach out to me for advice and opinions and also have people attempt to interfere with my search engine reputation management efforts for what ever reason.

I have been cast into a public eye in the the automotive industry best practices arena, while I will openly admit that pushing a mouse to follow a defined process is not my strong point, adapting to current changes in the search markets and online publishing are.  My efforts backed by a defined process for follow through is what will win.

Here in the very near future I will be publishing some online marketing and networking how tos to capitulate the brand that I have built into a marketable product.  I have spent to much time on proofs of concepts versus delivering quantified results for others.  I am looking forward to the challenge.

search engine reputation management, online branding, auto industry best practices.

Trying to reach giant squidom

Many people who have known me more than 30 minutes or so realizes that I love Squidoo.  One thing that I have not been doing is engaging the community there like I should probably.  This is really not a good thing.  I am trying to get into the Giant Squid club.  This give some unique benefits once you are in.

One of the biggest things it stops lenses from being a work in progress.  If you don't understand what the means it is ok.  It took me a while to figure it out as well.  If you don't use squidoo or have a desire to then it does not matter.

If you want to know more about squidoo just visit Paul Rushing on Squidoo.

squidoo, giant squid, paul rushing

Having Fun Helping Others

One of my favorite user generated content sites is Squidoo.com. I love to build pages there some are for business, some are for fun and others are to prove a point.

I know that sometimes exerting effort to prove a point can actually be counter productive at times but it still is fun. On of the social networks there was an exchange about "dealer micro sites" and the ISM from Jim Glover Chevrolet took the time to get really caustic in his remarks to me. So I built a page that effectively showed up in Google for what he considers a "money" term.

The cool thing about Squidoo is you can use the platform to build effective landing pages like I am doing for a friend of mine who happens to be trying to sell Suzuki Autos. I made this page to help him get traffic for Kansas City Suzuki Dealer, I sure hope it works.

kc suzuki dealer, dealer micro sites, jim glover chevrolet