John Dilbeck And Friends

On another of my blogs, I recently wrote about how broadband makes a huge difference in online marketing.

In that post, I concentrated on the benefits of fast Internet access and how it helps to get more work done.

In this post, I’m going to look at the other side of the coin and how broadband Internet access throws up so many shiny red balls that tend to catch my attention and pull me from my work.

To be fair, life is not all about work and there should be a good balance between work and play, business and family, and even being at home and getting out in the world. I know those things.

What brings this all up is that I’ve been spending much of my time with my daughter and her family this month and I’ve encountered some things that have made it more difficult to focus on my work and to ignore the distractions.

1. Television - the great time waster.

For years, I could only see 3.5 channels on TV - NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS. I say 3.5 channels because I could only receive PBS part of the time.

When TV switched from analog to digital, I could see exactly 0 (yep, zero) channels. No TV!

For many people that would have been a disaster, but for me it helped to make more time to focus on my work.

Now, I don’t know how many channels are available here. There are channels I’ve never seen before and some of them catch my interest in ways I never would have imagined.

I was watching a show about rebuilding Stonehenge on the National Geographic channel. It was a fascinating story of how some folks built replicas of the Stonehenge monolithic rocks using foam and rebuilt what they think is a good replica of the original Stonehenge. I found that fascinating. *Poof* there goes an hour of my life. Was it educational? I think so. Did it help me get closer to reaching my goals? Not at all.

My daughter introduced me to a show called Cake Boss about some folks in New Jersey that have a bakery and specialize in some rather awesome cakes. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d find that interesting, but I did. The next thing I knew, I’d watched three episodes and another hour and a half had evaporated. Entertaining? Yes. Closer to achieving my dream? No.

I could go on and on. I bet I’ve wasted 30 or 40 hours this month, just watching TV. I’ve been watching old reruns of NCIS, Becker, Cheers, and lots of other old favorites. Why? I’m not really sure.

2. Internet video - both useful and an incredible time waster.

I have really mixed feelings about this one.

Now that I have access to broadband, I’ve discovered that I both like and loathe online videos, and I haven’t been good at separating the two.

I recently learned about Hulu.com and while I enjoy some of what it has to offer, it has cost me quite a few hours of productive work time.

For instance, I have watched six or seven episodes from season one of The A-Team and enjoyed all of them. Entertaining? You betcha. Helps me get closer to reaching my goals? Quite the opposite.

I have been a big fan of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis for several years. Since I didn’t have cable TV, the only way I could watch them was to rent them on Netflix.

While playing around on Hulu.com, I discovered that Amanda Tapping, who had been one of the co-stars in both Stargate series had a show of her own called Sanctuary. Three episodes were available on Hulu and I watched all of them. I liked the show so much that I added all of the episodes from season one of the series to my Netflix queue and eventually they’ll show up in my mailbox.

With broadband, I don’t have access to just three DVDs at a time, I can watch shows online from NetFlix and that’s a huge temptation.

Until this month, I had much less temptation to watch movies and TV episodes because I had made it a habit to do all my work first and would reward myself with a little TV (by watching DVDs from Netflix) while eating dinner.

Now, however, there is a huge number of shows and movies I’d love to watch and I don’t even have to wait the two days it normally takes to mail a DVD back and get the next one in my queue.

So, I’ve had to think about ways to deal with these distractions.

I realize that watching old reruns at random is a waste of my time and energy. I don’t think I’m going to have a difficult time tuning them out.

On the other hand, I’ve also discovered the lure of YouTube.

I will never get hooked on the mindless entertainment that is available on YouTube. I have no doubt about that.

However, I’ve discovered that YouTube has some interesting and useful content that I will watch and some of it may even be helpful in my business.

For example, I’m a huge fan of Napoleon Hill and his books Think and Grow Rich and Law of Success. But, until last week, I’d never seen a video of him. Quite by accident, I stumbled across a video of Mr. Hill talking about his initial meeting with Andrew Carnegie and how that launched his career devising and publicizing his personal success courses and philosophy.

Since I have some pages on my sites about Napoleon Hill, I added this video to a couple of them. For example, you can see that video on this page: Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich - Law of Success.

I think that video actually adds something to the information about Mr. Hill.

So, while I’ll never waste any time watching videos of squirrels surfing or idiots doing stupid things, I do find value in some of the videos available on YouTube and I’ll be making use of some of them in the future.

One of the things I plan to do is create short videos of some of the business owners on Murphy Gold where they can talk about why they enjoy owning and operating the businesses they do. I think that will provide good information that some of their customers and prospects will enjoy learning.

I still have to learn how to create and edit these videos, but that’s going to be pretty easy since one of my granddaughters has a photography business and can take good videos with one of her cameras.

I have video editing software on my computer that I’ve never used, so it will be interesting to learn if this will be another distraction or a way to help promote my business and my client’s businesses.

So, perhaps I needed to get caught up in some of these distractions this month in able to sort out the useful from the shiny red balls that just lead me off track.

I can see how someone who doesn’t have a plan or goals to achieve could be dragged into hours and hours of wasted time.

It’s easy to do. Just veg out in front of the tube and let it feed nonsense into your receptors.

On the other hand, when I find something that matches the goals I have set for myself, I’m discovering a whole new world of information that can really be useful.

The hard part is to separate the two and not let myself be distracted by things that will never lead me one step closer to achieving my goals.

What about you?

How do you deal with distractions? Do you have plans and goals you want to achieve? Do they help you stay focused?

All the best,

JD

I always enjoy creating something new and watching it grow. That’s what’s happening with our new online community for Murphy, NC - a website designed for business networking and social networking for people who live in our charming little mountain town or who are interested in the area.

Our Murphy, NC Social Networking Community is less than a month old and already we’re attracting visitors from four countries, including the United States, Canada, China, and Australia.

Over 17% of the visitors to the site are coming from the search engines, so that indicates that we’re getting indexed and found for both local and general searches.

Over time, as we get new members and increased participation, more visitors will find us and learn about what is taking place in Murphy, NC. I believe this community will be even more useful for the people who live here and join in the fun.

I am happy to do all I can to help promote our community, but I can’t do it all by myself, so I encourage you to join and participate.

Tell us what you are doing and keep us up to date on what’s happening with your business, organizations, churches, and other interests and activities.

When you join, you can customize your profile page with information about you and what you’re doing.

You have your very own blog there and can join in, or start, discussions in our forum.

I’ve been busy creating new groups to make it easy for people who share common interests to meet and interact with each other.

I don’t want to create too many groups, but I’m always listening to what you want, and if you want a new group created for your interests, just let me know.

The following groups are active and ready for you to join and participate in, and are presented in no particular order:

• Promote Your Business
• Music and Musicians
• Government and Politics
• New To Murphy
• Local Photography
• Murphy Small Business
• Murphy Real Estate
• Nonprofits and Volunteers
• Hunting and Fishing
• Gardening and Farming
• Arts and Crafts
• Merchant Circle Members
• Pet Lovers
• Murphy Dreamers

If you visit the groups page, you’ll see all the groups and a brief description of their purpose.

I am happy to do what I can to help promote Murphy, NC and the people who live here. I can cover a small part of the activities in our area, but your participation is required if our online community is to reach its potential.

Don’t be shy. Join in the fun and tell us what’s happening in your corner of the Murphy area.

Of course, it’s free!

I hope to see you there.

Act on your dream!

JD

Hendersonville-based SCORE Western North Carolina announced that Judy Grove has joined its new branch office in Murphy, North Carolina, as a volunteer business counselor.

SCORE is a not-for-profit all volunteer resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. They offer free business advice, counseling and mentoring to entrepreneurs who want to start, expand, finance or buy a business.

Grove, a seasoned entrepreneur, is president and chief executive officer of Grove Enterprises, Inc. in Brasstown. She has many years of experience overcoming the challenges of starting and making small businesses profitable and will apply these skills when helping her SCORE clients.

Dick Adams is the chair of SCORE Western North Carolina and met with Grove in Murphy. He told her that Washington-based SCORE was started 40 years ago and has since grown to 10,500 volunteers, in 385 chapters nationwide. Adams said that new Cherokee County branch is an outreach of the Hendersonville-based, SCORE Western North Carolina with 27 volunteers and branches in Brevard and Rutherford. It will serve small businesspersons in Cherokee, Clay and Graham counties.

To learn more online, check out, www.scorewnc.org and www.score.org. Grove’s Web site is, www.grove-ent.com.

Domiciled at the Small Business Center of Tri-County Community College in Cherokee County, NC, the new SCORE office conducts private and confidential counseling and mentoring sessions with business owners.

SCORE’s local branch office is looking for a few more volunteers. This interesting opportunity is available to working and retired men and women who have small business or corporate skills. They must enjoy helping others succeed spend a few hours monthly on a flexible schedule. Resources and training are provided.

For further information on volunteering or to request an application, please e-mail: JKChautin@aol.com or call (828) 837-4598 in Murphy or (828) 693-8702 in Hendersonville.

We’re approaching the end of September and people who run businesses are turning their attention from summer activities to gearing up for the final quarter of marketing before the end of the year.

Webmasters, marketers, home business owners, folks who auction products on eBay, and just about anyone involved in online commerce will find Sitesell’s newest tool, Search It! to be a very valuable addition to their online research tools.

How many sites do you have bookmarked that you regularly search? Do you remember all the different formats you must use to get the information you want? Let Search It! help!

If you open Search It! and park it in a window where you can easily get to it during your work sessions, you’ll find that it will become an invaluable tool to help you improve your websites, keep a close watch on your competition, look for ways to monetize the traffic to your site, look for more — and better — keywords and phrases, and do much more, easier than ever before possible.

The good news?

It’s free! Yep, Sitesell, once again, overdelivers and underprices.

Site Build It! owners get some extra functionality, but everyone can use this new tool as much as you want at no cost to you.

It’s a bit different, so be sure to click the help link and read it. One of the great things about Search It! is that the help (between steps 1 & 2 and steps 3 & 4) changes depending upon the type of search you are doing. This makes it easy to use without having to keep notes or just feeling your way around.

I’ve been searching on the Internet since before the World Wide Web even existed and I found some great resources by using Search It! that I never knew existed.

I heartily recommend this tool to you. If you’re searching for anything on the web, see if Search It! can help you.

ClickPrint just introduced PressAbles into their extensive line of customizable labels.

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Choose from their wide selection of PressAbels such as Counter Mats, Bumper and Window Stickers, Custom Calendars, All Purpose, and others.

PressAbels are available in the Labels section of their website.