DISQUS

You make an interesting point and BOTDA mentioning FOCUS is the one thing that will bring clarity to your writing.

One of the popular tactics I see on some blogs are link lists - which I choose to ignore - because they typically have no focus. Usually, they cover multiple topics or simply reflect what the blogger read that day. Who cares what you are reading? What I care about is 'what you think about what you are reading.

Blog posts should be about one thing?

If people wrote focused sentences about just one thing – that alone would make their blog more readable and cogent.

Ben, sorry if they are touch questions and anytime you would prefer to discuss privately, that option is always open.

As a business coach, asking the tough questions is a big part of what I do because it pushes us to dig and cannot hide from ourselves. Self-deception is a most dangerous drug.

Disappointing family, friends, and employees when a business fails is very hard.

You faced even more tough questions when you were in the midst of it.

Would it be fair to say that your greatest learning from that situation was the need to be decisive and act quickly? Would that be accurate?

BTW, thanks for being transparent and open, that is one of the qualities I will be talking about in the role of Advocate in the book.

Jorge: As long as you are pointed in the right direction and are moving forward, even if you fall, at least you are pointed in the right direction. Keep it up and let me know how I can help.

Hi Ben, thanks for responding. It never is pleasant expereince letting people go.

You mention that "I coped by working to separate my feelings of disappointment and frustration and my personal emotions from the business."

I would like to better understand how you kept your "personal emotions from your feelings of disappointment and frustration" - how did you actualy accomplish that?

Was it mental toughness?

Did you simply ignore your feelings?

Did you 'cope' in the way you 'talked' yourself through it?

Did you confide in others?

Did you ever think that had you acted sooner things might have been different?

I hoping to understand the inner game...

Hey Ben, Jorge: sorry to be so late responding, I am in the midst of moving servers etc. and time just seemed to vanish.

Maintaining momentum and building a sustained business takes years of effort. Along the way it is a journey in learning.

Simply put, the faster you learn the faster you can implement what you have learned and modify your approach. It is this process of trial, error, and try again that takes time.

We become impatient when things are not moving quick enough because we expected it to be easier, faster, or better in some way.

The reality is that the 'assumptions' we make about ourselves, customers, marketing, and finances all contribute to our results.

Think about this...

“We do what we are. We are what we think. What we think is determined by what we learn. What we learn is determined by what we experience and what we experience is determined by what we expose ourselves to and what we do with that experience.” - Mike Vance, founder and dean of Walt Disney University

We need to be willing to try new things. Observe and adjust. Rinse and repeat.

Just remember that Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is a sustainable business. Put the power of time to work for you, keep pressing ahead.

Ben: I will respond to your answers on my blog once my DNS and hosting move is complete. I appreciate your input.

I do have one question, "What was it that got in the way of you making the decision to let people go?"

Thanks for the help Ben, I am working on another project with a couple of entrepreneurs spread around the world on another book on Talent Development & Business Succession planning. In my business collaboration is not a trend it is quickly becoming the best way to do business.

It is also a form of outsourcing.

Always a challenge to figure out the best timing. But it is especially important when you are starting to build some momentum, then as Ben says, you either outsource or you lose momentum or wear yourself out.

OK Ben, you asked...

Absolutely, Yes, Google penalizes duplicate content.

Let me share a personal story. In 2005, I switched from a custom built CMS to Wordpress. I spent a lot of time moving content over by hand. Unknown to me, I had left a path open for Google to still get my content via the old CMS.

I dropped totally out of the search engines. I was getting 700-800 visits per day, traffic plumeted to under 100. After 4 years in the top 5 results in Google for my site I was nowhere to be found.

At that time I was running Google Adwords on my site and I went from paying my mortgage, taxes, and groceries with my Google check to $50.

I was shell shocked. Spent hours, days, and weeks getting to the bottom of it. IN the end I discovered two issues.

First, after auditing my old CMS and pages I discovered an open path that Google was spidering and much of this was content I had moved to my new wordpress blog.

Second, at the time Google had left open a back door for hackers to exploit the 302 Error that Google uses to spoof Google into thinking that the scraper site was my site and that the content on my site (which was the originator and owner) was the offending site in Googles eyes plus the offending site got my Google PR.

The rub was the offending URL was also using Google Adwords.

I consulted many SEO experts, forums, and blogs trying to get to the bottom of the 302 Error problem no one could really give me a real answer and their solution was always the same. Eliminate all duplicate content find the scraper URL in your server logs and report them to Google and wait.

So watched my server logs like a hawk, closed my unintentional open path to the old CMS and then I reported everything I discovered to Google.

I also tracked down the Hosting Co. of the offending URL and claimed DMCA Safe Harbor provisions (copyright violations) and requested that the offending URL's services be suspended.

Suffice it to say, it cost me cold hard cash, days of wasted time, and woke me up to the realities of the Internet.

I never got anything but an automated reply from Google but reading between the lines and speaking with much more experienced White Hat and Black Hat SEO's they all felt I got Google's attention. Now I just had to sit an wait.

It took about 7-8 months for traffic to return to previous levels but after 3-4 months I noticed my server logs were not showing the offending URL as a referrer and my traffic started to grow slowly, ever so slowly.

I made a business decision at that time to never rely on business income from advertising online because of all the variables and the impact of my own innocent mistake and a scraper theif.

So, I removed all advertising from my site, rebuilt it with a new design and focus, I have never looked back.

For me, not watching and tweaking site design and layout based on what was happening to my click through ratios was a relief. I also felt more congruent and I was free to focus on serving my readers with quality content, not tweaking for clicks.

All I can say is be careful. These gray and black hat techniques all work, for awhile.

As a business professional I have learned the hard way not take the easy and fast route to riches - any so called success is temporary and fleeting.

This is just my real life experience story and I am sticking to it...

Thanks Ben, I too did not announce my design change. Great tips.

Thanks, Ben, I am trying those out on my blog, thansk for the heads up.

Hi Lorelle: that is a great point and a great use of this plug in.

Thank goodness someone else is talking about this totally cool buy useless plugin/add on. I first ran across this at Duct Tape Marketing and commented then that "I don't get it." If it adds friction to the user experience it has to go.

Ben you are indeed an instigator.

Way to go, 70 posts adding to the conversation. Woo Hoo!

What an excellent concept Ben. I will participate on my blogs. I am gonna be busy!

P.S. can I borrow your graphic for my posts?