Final Piece Consulting, LLC

The first question we all ask ourselves when choosing a line of work is – “How much does it pay?”

We all need to make a living, and no matter what we want to do we also have to get paid enough to live, eat, and maybe take out a nice lady

I started Final Piece because of my love and belief in social media. Plan and simple.

Just like many other smart marketing professionals, I believed that small and mid-sized businesses could compete with companies larger than them despite the lack of marketing dollars.

Now there are actually job titles with “Social Media” in them and employees across the United States that are making good money in those jobs.

Onward Search recently put together a social media jobs salary guide that outlines just what those jobs pay in various job markets across the U.S.

It’s beginning to look like you can get a great social media gig without having to start your own company to create said gig…

Although I can’t say it’s a bad way to go.

© 2012 Onward Search

I think Buddy the Elf signifies what is inside a person. Honestly I believe that’s why the movie Elf resonates despite it being another Christmas movie with many of the same tropes and themes of any other Christmas movie.  That and the insanely funny Will Ferrell.

We want to be innocent again. We yearn for those days when we could experience things for the first time.

You stink. You smell like beef and cheese! You don’t smell like Santa. – Buddy the Elf

There’s a kid inside us all that would come out if it wasn’t for responsibilities like providing for a family, paying a mortgage, growing a business, etc.

I think that’s why the holiday season means so much to everyone. No matter what your religion, this time of year allows that little kid deep down to peek his head out. Even if it is only for a few days.

We spend so much time moving as fast as possible that we rarely take the time to sit back, reflect and appreciate our friends, family and clients.

I personally know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without those aforementioned folks.

• My wife gave me the courage to step out on my own despite all the reasons not to do so.
• My friends have supported me by sending me business whenever they can.
• My clients have trusted in my vision for their business and chose to spend their marketing budgets on that vision.

2011 was a wonderful year for me, my family, my business and for many of the clients around me. There truly aren’t words to express my gratitude towards those folks, and I can’t do much more than offer this thank you.

I think that’s why I love Buddy the Elf so much. He doesn’t need to wait until the holidays to show how grateful he is for the people around him. He just does it all the time.

Hopefully the kid inside me will make sure I do that more in 2012. I know I’m happy to see him right now.

After reading a great article in Inc. Magazine last month on the best business bargains for self-funded entrepreneurs I felt obligated to share what I believe to be the Top 10 Websites for Small Business Entrepreneurs.

When I say the Top 10 Websites for Small Business Entrepreneurs, I mean the places you can visit for great deals on mission critical items every small business entrepreneur needs to run and manage a successful small business.

A few of these I ripped straight from the Inc. Magazine article – but only because I have used them in the past and fully agreed with their inclusion.

I hope these help you, because they have truly helped me!

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1. 99Designs.com - You obviously need a logo and you probably have no idea where to find it. 99Designs offers logo packages for as low as $295. Worried that cost will affect quality? Don’t. 99Designs is chock full of graphic designers who are ready to submit entries once you sign up and describe the type of logo you are looking for. These creative-types then enter a contest where you are the judge and get to select a logo from a bunch of entries. Obviously the more money you put up the more entries you get. But I can tell you from experience that even if you shell out $500-$750 you are spending WAY less than you would with a design shop and you will most likely be very happy with the end result.

2. eFax.com - Save paper, save time, save money. No need for a fancy fax machine or a second line in your home. With plans as low as $12.95 you can send and receive faxes that will come directly to your email in PDF form. You may need to invest in a scanner, but come on, you have a business and no scanner?

3. Elance.com - Need some high quality help but don’t have the money to pay a full-time employee yet? Elance offers a robust network of freelancers that are great at what they do. Whether you need web developers, programmers, writers or a variety of other experts – Elance has them. Don’t worry about the quality of work either as everyone is rated and you get your pick from a pool of qualified professionals.

4. Download.com - Need some new software? This CNET hosted site offers up a plethora of free and paid desktop apps in one place. My favorite part is that you can read thousands of reviews and see how many folks have downloaded each program so you don’t waste your time learning to use garbage.

5. iContact - I’ve used a bunch of email marketing software and for overall quality and price, I believe iContact is the way to go. I appreciate their transparent pricing structure as well as a software platform that can be mastered by those with little experience to those who are HTML masters.

6. Dreamhost.com - For a guy like me that manages a ton of websites, I want a company that has good customer service and can offer explanations when there is any downtime. Dreamhost also offers a variety of “one-click installs” that makes it fast and easy to upload WordPress or Joomla to the back end of your website so you can save all your time for design. They also have great pricing and a user friendly dashboard for those with at least moderate experience in web development.

7. Hubspot.com - If I had to choose a monthly service that is well worth the commitment for any entrepreneur that either does a lot of business online or is interested in generating business online (which you should be) – Hubspot is it. For a commitment as low as $3,250 for an entire year of services you get a package that will help create, nurture and convert leads. They also offer great support and will help those businesses unsure of how to qualify the value of social media.

8. Craigslist.org - I know, I know – you’ve heard of Craigslist. But have you used Craigslist to purchase office furniture, office supplies, electronics or even to find interns willing to work for you? If you haven’t, go there now and truly experience all it has to offer. You don’t need to think of it simply as a place to sell your old Nintendo games anymore.

9. Tabsite.com - If you are a small business than you would likely benefit from having a presence on Facebook. A presence that can offer current and potential clients another avenue to get support, discuss your products and services and create a [INSERT BRAND NAME] community. For as little as $50 per year, Tabsite will help make that Facebook experience one that visitors won’t forget. You’ve seen a Facebook Page I’m sure – Tabsite will change what you think of a Facebook Page.

10. Google Products - The great thing about Google is all the free products it offers. What’s even better is that many of these products can really help the small business entrepreneur. Whether you want to track online mentions of your company, analyze website traffic, share online documents or get blogs sent directly to one location – Google Products can help.

Everyone knows the real estate market has been in the proverbial crapper for more than two years. So of course my wife

and I decided to put our house on the market in February (a cold and dreary month in NC) of 2011.

After 91 days and 10 showings we had an offer and accepted that offer early this month.

Why do I bring this up you ask? Because I am confident that an integrated social media strategy helped sell my home.

But first, let’s bring it back to 2010.

Choosing a Forward Thinking Real Estate Firm

I began to work with 1st Signal Realty (Disclaimer: 1st Signal Realty is a client) in September of 2010 when their owner, Will Dyson, and I sat down to discuss

his business model moving forward. Will has been a successful entrepreneur in a few industries and he wanted to meet with me because he understood

the importance of social media but simply didn’t have the ability to implement a strategic plan.

We spoke for a few hours and I came away with the feeling that I could come up with an integrated strategy across the web that included website updates, a local blog and a local focus on a few specified social networking sites.

Since that meeting, Will and I have been working together to not only help sell homes but to create a community of friends and clients online. It has helped grow 1st Signal as well as encourage home buyers and sellers to choose a real estate firm that is progressive and always evolving for their clients.

How Social Media Helped Sell My Home

Fast forward to late January of last year when my wife and I decided it might be a good time to sell our home in order to take advantage of the low interest rates. Will counseled us on how we should approach this decision and we had our home on the market by Super Bowl Sunday.

Since 1st Signal had a strategic and integrated social media plan in place for 5+ months at the time I knew my home was, at the very least, going to be in the upper eschelon of local homes in that prize range as far as visibility goes.

Because we had already created a community, when our house became available it was shared everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, Real Estate Forums and more.

We didn’t beg folks to buy our home or even ask them to “please, please tell everyone about our home!”  Instead, thanks to the commitment 1st Signal made to social media – our home was able to stand out from the rest of the pack.

Do Your Research

Make sure the next time you decide to buy or sell a home that you find a local real estate firm who is offering a marketing strategy that includes an integrated social media plan. There may be a bigger real estate firm that has more agents or a longer list of achievements – but I can almost gurantee that won’t sell your home.

How do I know? Social Media sold my home, that’s how.

My first intern at Final Piece Consulting just scored a full time job at a great firm in the Triangle.  I’m not going to lie, when she told me about landing the job I think I had my first ever “proud father” type moment. The purpose of hiring an intern to work with me was not to simply lighten the workload or to have someone around just to do busy work. I wanted someone hungry to learn and absorb information about social media that I could teach while refining my skills as a leader.

Based on what she sent me after the internship – not only was I smiling and proud – I felt like I had bettered the lives of two people, teacher and student.

As someone with a full-time job and out of college for two years, I’m sure I wasn’t the typical candidate who would apply for a part –time internship. However, after two years in a job where I felt creatively stifled and after months of receiving rejections from jobs I applied for, I found the posting for the Final Piece internship.

Although I had experience in journalism and public relations, I realized that I didn’t have extensive experience in social media. Through the interview process, I discovered that this particular understanding was something that many potential employers were looking for. Final Piece offered me this and more!

Right of the bat, one unique attribute I noticed with working with Matt was the flexibility with not only my schedule but also my workspace. Despite my full-time job, Matt was able to work with me on both meeting and assignment schedules. Furthermore, our meetings and discussions did not take place in stuffy conference rooms but rather in the comfort of the neighborhood bookstore.

From our first meeting, Matt was very open about wanting to educate me on what I was interested in; whether that be the ins and outs of Google Analytics or the vitality of search engine optimization. I was also given the opportunity to participate in projects relating to each of Final Piece’s diverse and exciting clients which enabled me to understand, not only WHO the target audience was but HOW to reach them. These projects included media outreach, handling and maintenance of social media accounts, social media reporting, and various writing projects. In fact, I now have a wide variety of writing samples (blogs, web copy, etc.) to provide to future employers.

One of the key things I took away from this internship, especially in regards to social media, was the importance of generating interesting content that is relevant to the intended audience. So many times, there is a tendency to post or tweet just for the sake of consistency without giving much thought to the quality of the posted content.  This can, in turn, disengage those that you are trying to reach.

Wrapping up, everything I set out to accomplishment with this internship, I did. But it was only through the hands-on experience and guidance provided to me by Matt. Now, after adding my newfound social media and marketing experience to my resume, I’ve actually scored the job that I was looking for – talk about paying off!

So, you are a small business owner. You know you need customers, cash flow and a product or service to sell. Once the particulars of that to-do list are figured out, not too far behind needs to be the creation of a website for your new company.

If this isn’t on your radar in 2011 then you may as well not start your business (in my humble opinion). It doesn’t matter if you are a painter, insurance salesman, artist, photographer or CPA – you MUST have a website that is easy to find, easy to navigate and one that sufficiently showcases your business offerings and personality.

Now comes the hard part – should you pay the money to develop your site on HTML pages or use the WordPress platform?

This isn’t an easy question to answer in that it ultimately will depend on your individual needs, but I firmly believe that a customized WordPress website can offer up a lot of great advantages and at a much lower cost.

1) Enhanced SEO – Your email signature, business card and marketing materials should all point to your new website, but more importantly you want people to find you that otherwise never would if the website didn’t exist. That is what the Internet is for, right?   You can optimize an HTML site, sure, but it is extremely time consuming for a web developer/designer. As far as what the “Ruler of the World” Google tells us – HTML websites and WordPress websites are looked at the same. In my experience however, WordPress sites tend to outrank HTML sites early and often. Google, Bing, Yahoo and every other search engine want updated content that is relevant to search terms, and since WordPress is “technically” a blogging platform you immediately have an advantage.

2) Ease of Use – There is nothing worse than a clunky CMS (content management system) or one that takes you an hour just to upload a new photo.  With HTML sites, the quality of your CMS typically depends on how much you are paying for your website. WordPress has a relatively robust CMS system that is open source and can integrate with MySQL, PHP and others.  There will still be a learning curve for website owners that have never used WordPress, but I am willing to bet money that it is much smaller than a cheaply built CMS. Plus – if you want to add new pages to your site, switch up navigation or add a new logo you can do it without having to even look at any code!

3) SPAM! – I will tip my hat to HTML sites in that they are typically more secure. It is much easier for the Prince of Zimbabwe to get your credit card number on WordPress. I will say though that there are many new and expanding plugins that a good WordPress developer can install to protect you at a much greater rate than ever before.  If you are using a decent developer – your site should be safe using either HTML or WordPress.

4) Plugins - The one word and major reason WordPress continues to get better and better every day and I have fallen madly in love with it. Developers continue to make great plugins that are free or extremely cheap. Just don’t forget to donate sometimes to help the cause! Would you rather be able to add a new contact form, post a video and integrate your social media accounts with one click or design the functionality on your own each time?  Of course you can do that in HTML if you want, but again we are talking about ways to have a great website for a small price.

So in conclusion, if you are a small business owner I highly recommend you go with WordPress for your website. You will not only get a great looking site that ranks high and has great functionality, but you will have the ability to maintain your website without having to always pay a developer.

But enough about my opinion – what do you think?

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If you have any questions about whether or not a WordPress website would be good for your business – feel free to add a note in the comment section or contact us!

I’ll go ahead and admit this is shameless self promotion before I even start. But more than that, it is a man proud of something he has nurtured since inception and seen grow and become something he is supremely proud of.

While I have been working with a bunch of great clients already – this is the first major project under the umbrella of Final Piece to officially launch.

The great people at Mate1.com and I came up with a comedic concept to build their brand online. As everyone in this industry knows, ideas and concepts come and go, so when you get one that sticks and you think it may have legs, there is a certain thrill and excitement to it.

That idea then generated a partnership (with the Weasel Pauly Shore no less), video storyboards, awesome creative,  PR strategy, a website and many late nights at the office.

While the contest has just begun and doesn’t come to a close until 1/15/2011, meaning there is a ton of work to still be done, I thought talking about how proud I am of the launch would not only be therapeutic as I prepare for step 2 but also allow me a second to sit back and make sure I enjoyed what has already been done. Too often we race, race, race and never take a chance to appreciate ourselves and the people around us.

So if there is anything you can do for me – just check out the website and let me know what you think.

At the very least, take this opportunity to appreciate some work you’ve done recently and are proud to have worked on before racing to your next project.

We’re proud to be supporters of this year’s Running Free with K-Wayne 5K in memory of Kyle Wayne DuBose.  Not only is it a fantastic event that is well run and in support of a great cause – NARSAD, the world’s leading charity dedicated to mental health research – but it is in honor of the brother of a longtime friend.

If you haven’t already signed up just show up at the end at the New Hill – Olive Chapel entrance of the American Tobacco Trail on Saturday, November 13 (map below). The race will begin at 9 AM so get there early to chat with other supporters and well wishers.

If you personally have, or know anyone that has, struggled with mental illness or lost their life because of it – please come out and show your support. The 5K charity event is $10.00 on site and 100% of all donations will go to support NARSAD’s research.

For more of the race visit www.runningfreekwayne5k.com.

It’s funny how one of the main social media tools you are an advocate for can fall to the back burner when you get too busy.  Being a business owner is certainly not easy and effective time management is truly the key to success.  But even when you feel great about all the client goals and deadlines you’ve met – you can still forget to look out for your own business.  I’m speaking about blogging of course, and not only its importance, but finding the time to do it for yourself and not just your clients.  I spend a large portion of my time building blogs, creating content for blogs and measuring the success of blogs.  This makes it hard for me to find time to blog for myself anymore.  This poor blog died a quick death almost right after it started and my personal blog hasn’t been updated in months.  I love writing and miss finding the time for it.  I’m hoping this post is therapeutic and I force myself to schedule blogging into my calendar right along with everything else.

I miss blogging.

My website misses the benefits that come from blogging.

My mind misses speaking for the world (or my mother) to hear.

I know and sell to businesses the importance of blogging, social media and really all inbound marketing. I need to get back to it and I hope you can help me. Otherwise I might forget what got me here and turn into one of the morons who responded to the survey below.

My industry news intake has suffered drastically over the last few weeks thanks to a good deal of new business.  Now don’t get me wrong , new business is a great thing for my livelihood and more specifically my wife’s shopping habits, but it can make it hard to blog when you are a small start-up company. 

I did however have the opportunity to check out a few very intriguing articles and wanted to share them with you in this week’s edition of Monday Links.

1. Google TV Announces Its Programming Partners

Google continues to do everything they possibly can to turn America into 1984. I kid, I kid (kind of).  They plan on launching Google TV in the next few weeks and have signed contracts with HBO, CNBC and Turner Broadcasting (TBS,TNT) to name a few.  As with anything Google does, they hope to be the “leader in the growing industry of Internet-connected television sets, which Forrester Research expects to be in 43 million United States homes by 2015.” What do you think about turning television screens into bonafide web portals?

2. 4 Reasons The Social Media Industry Has a Credibility Problem

We need to stop talking about what we are going to do and actually do it.  We need to stop thinking our time is more valuable than someone else’s. Most of all we need to help others that don’t get social media instead of lashing out at them.  Basically just a great post from a great blog to help put things in perspective.

Just because some of us may be on the right side of a revolution doesn’t mean we are better than anyone else.

3. Why are Social Behaviors Plateauing?

Are we done acting as creators and instead shifting towards consumers?  And better yet, if we as communications professionals aren’t focused enough on creation – what will there be to consume?  One thing not changing – joiners. Joiners are the people that decide to test the waters with a social network presence meaning there are still more and more engagement opportunities out there.

 Where will the next shift be?