Rich Schefren's Doctrine 2 is finally here

We've been waiting for it since June. Read it. It's a must read for any business owner, online or off.

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How 'Bout Them Riders!

So the Saskatchewan Roughriders are the Grey Cup Champions of 2007. It's about time! But they weren't the only winners in this playoff run. The good fortunes of the Riders also brought about some major economic windfalls for the city of Regina and the whole province of Saskatchewan.

Sure the Riders organization will benefit from this run via merchandise and 2008 season ticket sales. But the real winners are all the businesses that saw people get off their wallets in order to support the Roughriders.

Every restaurant or pub with a television was probably full on Sunday. Grocery stores were bombarded with people buying snacks and munchies for the big game. Transportation based businesses couldn't schedule enough trips to get fans from Regina to Toronto. And don't even get me started on liquor sales.

Media outlets covering the run to the Grey Cup seemed unable to keep any sort of advertising inventory available. The Leader Post had piles of special sections covering the Riders, with half of the content in those sections being advertising. NewsTalk 980 had special four hour Drew Remenda Sport's Shows from Wednesday to Saturday on the radio with special coverage of the post game festivities, welcoming party, and parade. It seemed every half hour was sponsored by way more advertisers than normal. Everyone just wanted a piece of the financial pie that the Roughriders cooked up.

So the next time you hear about a story of a city spending tax payer money to improve facilities to keep professional sports alive, keep in mind the whole picture. Sports have the ability to capture the imaginations (and dollars) of the masses. The economic spin off of that is enormous.

Jaime Luchuck Leader Post Article

Traditional media should get up to date. Bloggers can get things out much quicker. But I guess if my blogs had the same daily readership as the Leader Post in Regina, I'd be making a lot more money.

Anyway, here's the link to an article that appeared in this morning's Leader Post about Next Internet Millionaire winner Jaime Luchuck. Here's a link to an older Leader Post article as well.

The same article appears in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, but with a much more derogatory headline. I mean really, this girl just made more money in one week than the headline writer makes in a year and a half and they have the arrogance to put a headline on the article "Next Internet Millionaire won't need bigger wallet yet"?

Come on.

Jaime Luchuck Is The Next Internet Millionaire

Congratulations to Jaime Luchuck, the Regina born actress, author, and entrepreneur who was announced yesterday as the winner of Joel Comm's Next Internet Millionaire online reality show. Her book From Cubicle Slave to the Next Internet Millionaire sold $70,000 in a period of one week, and according to her blog, has hit #1 in two business categories on Amazon.com. Those sales numbers allowed her to beat out Charles Trippy's Viral Video Fever in the final challenge to become The Next Internet Millionaire. Jaime took home $25,000 cash (in a briefcase, how cliche) for her troubles.

Trippy's Viral Video Fever sold $39,000, (I'm still waiting for my DVD's Charles) meaning Joel Comm's combined JV with Charles and Jaime made over $100,000 in a one week period. Not bad.

Jaime's book showed up at my place on Monday and I was just flipping through the last pages as the final episode came online yesterday. I have to say it was tough to put down. Having watched the show from the first episode I found myself wishing I could have sat in on all those gurus while they unloaded their techniques - but Jaime's book was the next best thing to being there.

Not only does she give a behind the scenes account of the show, she also goes into detail about what all the best Internet marketers had to say in the classroom portions of the show. Her writing style is fairly informal, which made for an easy read. She did a great job of telling the story of her life at the same time as telling the story of the show and what she learned. I definitely recommend the read. I know it has inspired me to get going on a few projects that have been sitting on the backburner in my mind (look for them soon).

Congratulations Jaime! Looking forward to hearing great things from you in the future. And if you're at home in Toronto this week, make sure to get down to the Riderville cabaret to show your support for the Riders in the Grey Cup this weekend.

P.S. Jaime was in a hot air balloon with Charles and his girlfriend when he proposed. How awkward would that be?

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Have you looked through our marketing packages and like our ideas but aren't sure if any of them are quite right for your situation? As this video demonstrates, we just love helping small businesses. So if you have a marketing problem, let us be the solution.

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Charles Trippy's Viral Video Fever

Charles Trippy of online video and Next Internet Millionaire fame has come up with what seems to be a great product in Viral Video Fever. It is a DVD tutorial that shows people how to get the most out of online video, and was created as a joint venture with internet marketing guru Joel Comm. (We just ordered our copy yesterday.)

I would suggest heading over to the Viral Video Fever website, even if you don't intend on buying the product. This is where sales pages are headed. Why read a sales letter when you could just watch a video that says the same thing?

And if you look at it from the seller's point of view, if you had the choice of talking to someone or handing them a sales letter, which method do you think would produce more sales?

From watching Charles on the Next Internet Millionaire show, he's clearly a fun lovin' emo kid, but it's also clear that he's an incredible marketer. The fact that he's got one of the biggest YouTube subscriber lists should tell you that he's doing something right. And you only have to watch his video sales pitch on the Viral Video Fever website to understand that he's passionate about what he does and knows how to be entertaining/exciting.

Passion + Entertainment + Excitement = The ability to captivate an audience

That equation also translates into sales. So go check it out. The video below is also kind of a cool way he is promoting his video course using (oddly enough) online video.

Hire a Marketing Department For Your Small Business

Chances are if you're a small business owner, you are the marketing department. You respond to the ad salesmen and let them write your ads with a little creative direction from yourself. Wouldn't it be easier if you had a team of marketing professionals working for you to create and implement your marketing plan for you?

That's what LRS Consulting is all about. We can be your marketing department. Let us work with you to create a marketing plan for your small business.

Because marketing is so much more than just running ads, we'll coordinate your referral programs, customer communications, customer databases, copywriting, internet marketing, search engine optimization, online video, and so much more. We won't leave a single stone unturned when developing a plan to help grow your small business.

Check out our small business marketing packages here.

Online Marketing Services from LRS Consulting

Want to get more out of the internet for your small business? The internet is becoming the most important marketing medium for businesses of all sizes, but you don't have to be a Fortune 500 company to use it effectively.

But instead of spending a bunch of time learning how to effectively market your business using the internet, why not hire your own web guys? We have developed a system to help small businesses use internet marketing to its fullest potential. After you watch the video, check out our LRS Consulting Marketing Packages to see how you can get us to help you use internet marketing to grow your business for less of an investment than you'd think.

We'll implement a whole bunch of different techniques to help you control the conversation revolving around your business and your industry on the internet. Think blogs, website design, search engine optimization, online videos, Squidoo lenses, Facebook, and more. This is where business is going, get on board with LRS Consulting.

Jaime Luchuck Wins The Next Internet Millionaire - Well, Kind Of

Who said nothing good every comes out of Regina?

Jaime Luchuck, born in Regina, now residing in the big smoke of Toronto, was revealed as one of two finalists in the internet reality show The Next Internet Millionaire along with Charles Trippy. (These two were mentioned in a previous blog post, which is probably the sole reason why they were chosen as finalists).

In a twist of events, Joel Comm chose both Charles and Jaime to run joint venture projects with. They both created products to sell, with the person selling the most earning the title of The Next Internet Millionaire and a cash prize of $25,000.

But these two rising stars in the internet marketing game have already won. Jaime has published a book (From Cubicle Slave to the Next Internet Millionaire) and Charles has created a DVD (Viral Video Fever) both of which will undoubtedly make them both a fair amount of money. I know they'll be getting some of my money.

I'll have more posts soon talking about each one of the products because at first glance they seem to be awesome.

Way to go Jaime (and Charles).

Email Marketing PLUS Package from LRS Consulting

This video outlines our more advanced email marketing package. If your business is looking at tracking the results of advertising campaigns, running contests, and communicating with customers when you're running a sale, promotion, or special event, this package is for you.

For $349/month, we can help you use your small business website as the hub of your marketing activities. Check out the LRS Consulting Marketing Packages here.

Targeted Email Marketing Services from LRS Consulting

This is the first in a series of videos we created to promote some of our consulting packages. Unlike a lot of consulting firms that will just make recommendations, we actually help small businesses implement systems that get results.

This video talks about our email marketing services. If your business wants to start collecting a list of customers to communicate to directly through email and direct mail, this package is for you. And for the first few clients we sign on, we've got a special rate of $149/month.

For more information, visit the LRS Consulting website.