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This is one of my biggest pet peeves. On almost a daily basis, I run into a situation where someone made a commitment to me, and didn’t live up to it. It is tiresome, annoying, and flat out rude. I don’t pretend to be perfect, and I’m sure I’ve made my share of commitments that I couldn’t keep, but we need to put this pattern of recklessness to a stop.

Just this morning, I can already count two instances where people made promises to me and failed to live up to them. The first one was for a weekly Friday morning meeting that we planned for brainstorming and masterminding — the other party has failed to show on three of three occasions (yes, I’ve already removed this from my calendar now) — and the other was from a writer who committed to provide articles to me weekly, but hasn’t in several weeks (and hasn’t responded to my emails, either).

If You Can’t Live Up to Your Commitments, Don’t Make Them!

I can’t tell you how many times I was really excited about doing business with another company and had to pass because we weren’t able to commit to executing on our side of the relationship. While at the time, these situations were disappointing to both us and the other party, in the end, being up front about it probably saved our reputation and relationships with those companies. I’m very aware of our capabilities and try to never make promises I can’t keep . . . I strongly urge others take the same direction with their businesses.

How do you feel about it?

Tags: business, commitments, relationships

Brett Borders – Online Reputation Management

I just finished responding to a bunch of interview questions about community building from a good friend, and social media rockstar, Brett Borders. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out his site before, I strongly recommend going through each and every post, and of course, when the interview is published, you’ll want to have a look at that as well. Brett is one of the smartest people in the social space, and I guarantee that you could stand to learn a thing or two from him.

In addition to social, Brett is a bonified expert in online reputation management. He publishes a blog focused on the topic called Online Reputation Edge, and if you’re ever need some help in that field, I strongly recommend you check it out or get in touch!

Charles Feldman – Crisis Management & Media Consulting

I’ve known Charles for many years now, and he is flat out brilliant. Formerly with CNN, he is an investigative journalist with KNX Radio in Los Angeles, and writes for such outlets as Reuters, Huffington Post, WalletPop, HousingWatch, and the BiggerPockets Blog . He is also co-author of the book, “No Time To Think-The Menace of Media Speed and the 24-hour News Cycle.”

According to his website, “He has extensive experience as owner of a Beverly Hills based media consulting company in corporate, as well as individual media crisis management. Feldman has trained lawyers, doctors, corporate leaders and private citizens in how to best present themselves and their business/practice to the media.” Very few consultants have the experience in television, radio, print, and the internet, as do Charles.

Wrapping it up . . .

DISCLAIMER: I don’t get paid for referring these people to you.

Both have the experience and expertise to help you in the event that you need assistance with your reputation or crisis & media management. So, in the event that the shit hits the fan, you now know where to turn.

You can contact them on their sites, or follow Brett and Charles on Twitter.

Tags: crisis management, media consulting, reputation, Social Media

Today was supposed to be a new beginning, but sometimes we have to deal with headaches from our past, and that appeared to be the case this morning, as I learned of a security hole that was causing bots to be able to spam parts of our site. The hole has since been closed, but I wasn’t planning on spending the first few hours of the day on that nonsense.

The Entrepreneur’s Life: Something ALWAYS Comes Up

If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that no matter how well you plan things out, something will always come up to distract you. While many of these distractions can be ignored, often times you’ll need to re-prioritize your entire day/week/month as a result of others.

In my case, the loss of my developer this week means that everything else that I had planned to do has to be put on hold. We had some exciting upgrades to BiggerPockets planned, and unfortunately, they will need to wait until we can get someone new in house to execute. I was also working on some business deals, and these too must be put on hold for a short while until the number one priority – hiring – is complete. Of course, I’ve always got my backups, but it gets rough when you go through a period like I’ve had recently, with the loss of several developers over a short period of time. Then again, that’s how it often goes when you’re working with contract workers.

This is not something new for me. Dealing with unforeseen circumstances is the story of the last five plus years of my life, but if you’re an upstart entrepreneur, you better make sure you’ve got the ability to deal with such events, because they come up often.

Forward Planning: Plotting the Future of a Company

I’m planning on spending some time over the next days in linking up with other entrepreneurs to get a better idea of what size team to plan for when we start building things up. I’ve got a pretty good idea of our needs, but of course, it would be great to see what the experiences of those people who have been through the capital raising phase after bootstrapping are; most folks I know started their companies with financing . . . I’m in an altogether different place with a live, revenue generating and profitable business.

Here are some good reads I’ve found regarding team building as it relates to getting your startup off the ground:

• How to build a bulletproof startup
• Startup Hacks: Seven Ideas for Building Your Team
• Entrepreneurs: Team With People Smarter Than You

More to come . . .

According to Wikipedia, catharsis means a “cleansing”, “purging”, or “clarification.” I hope that today’s catharsis marks a new beginning for myself and my company, BiggerPockets.

With that in mind, I hope to share the journey moving forward with the rest of you.

I’ve ignored this blog for a long time, and I’ve really come to miss having a place where I can share great tips, tools, resources, and other info, as well as having a place to vent, and to let everyone know what it is that I deal with while running the business.

Moving Forward

This year started off with a bang, and along the way there were a few bumps in the road, followed by some boulders and a few mountains. I’m not going to get into the details, but just know that from today forward, the plan is to smooth out the road once again.

The first step in moving forward is to find a new ruby on rails developer for BiggerPockets. If you’re a coder or know of one, please check out the job description and shoot us your resume. Otherwise, the plan is to get working on the plan.

Simply put, I’ve been bootstrapping the business for long enough. The time has come to raise some capital and to take things to the next level. I hope to take you along with me on my journey.

Stay tuned.

Photo: *clairity*

Tags: biggerpockets, entrepreneur, raising capital

Here is a list of the 5 best webmaster forums that I continue to refer to when seeking information about websites, SEO, marketing, etc.; all of these forums are great communities! Be sure to bookmark them if you’re not doing so already!

The Top Webmaster Forums:

• DigitalPoint Forums
• SitePoint Forums
• V7 Network Webmaster Forums
• Webmaster-Talk Forums
• WebProWorld

If you have any other great ones you’d like to share, please do so below.

What webmaster resources do you use most?

Tags: Chats and Forums, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SitePoint, Web Design and Development, Webmaster

I just learned about a new video from Matt Cutts, thanks to Darren Monroe, that confirms once and for all that Google is NOT using the META KEYWORDS tag in their main search results.

Check it out and keep it in mind as you move forward with your website development and SEO efforts.

Tags: Google, Keywords, matt cutts, meta tags, search results, SEO, website

Over the past week or two I’ve noticed a new form of what I would deem Twitter SPAM. I’m not talking about all the crappy auto-responder messages or the direct tweets that try to get you to visit a link. This new form of spam on Twitter is more devious.

Examples:

As you can see from the examples above, the posters are sending out Re-Tweets, but in their messages, they are linking back to their websites in the very beginning of EVERY message. As you can see from the image below, these guys have made a habit out of it.

I’m starting to think that there is some social media “guru” teaching this twitter spam technique to people in real estate, because I’m not really seeing it in any other niche that I’m a part of. Anyone know who is putting this out there?

Why is This Spam?

I’d call this practice spam because it is an underhanded method of shoving your links into the face of anyone that you are communicating with. People can very easily go to your profile and see your link – you don’t need to post it in every one of your tweets that involve other people.

When your friends/followers visit your at (@) messages, these guys now have visibility.

You’re not going to build real relationships by annoying people; social media is about forging bonds. I see no reason to stay connected with someone that does this to those people who are interested in what I’ve got going on.

The Dilemma

Would you rather have some spammy person retweeting your articles, or simply block those people altogether?

I think this will pose a dilemma for many people.

These people are helping to market you, but they are doing so in a spammy way, right? They are potentially putting your link in front of thousands of their followers; is it a good idea to let them continue?

What would you do?

FYI – Clearly, anyone who knows me, realizes that I am no longer following these people; I also blocked them for good measure. I don’t care if I get an extra click here or there because of their re-tweets. The principle of how they are doing it just pisses me off!

Tags: Online Communities, Real estate, Social Media, spam, Twitter