First off, I hate to do this, but in order to protect the little guys out there ( like us!) , I must fore warn all of you of my worse public relations experience ever.

Do not ever consult Visibility Bookings or Carrol Van Stone. She is rude, obnoxious, “salesey”, pretentious individual who will promise you the world and deliver you nothing but heart ache and wasted time. When I have some more time ( she’s already cost me enough) I will inform all of you how Carol Van Stone “stole” $4500 of our budget and did absolutely NADA! 0! Zilch.

More to come. Much, much more.
Carrol: You are welcome to respond. Please do so. We can’t wait.
Jason
TopTenWholesale
JPC LLC

This is not a wholesale blog. Nor does this have anything to do with , seo, sales tips or advertising. This is a blog about how I decided to change our company culture yesterday morning while having having breakfast in Chicago awaiting to hear a seminar at the Search Engine Strategies Show.

During my breakfast, I was reading the USA Today. I’m sure you all know this is very big national newspaper that focuses on mainly national and international news. I was sipping my coffee, and a headline struck my eyes “Pop Warner player tackles bone cancer” . This was a stroy about 13 year old Trey Jordan, from Kansas City, MO , who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma back in May. Since May, Trey has been going through chemotherapy and had to under go surgery to have a prosthetic knee and titanium rod inserted in his right leg.

As I was reading this story, I felt as if Trey were starring me in the face. I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness overcome me and a numbing sensation that will forever change the way I, and JP Communications gets involved and utilize our resources and values for others.

We had planned on giving all of our customers holiday gifts and recognition. As a standard corporate practice, this is an act widely accepted as customers expect to be appreciated and thought of. Well, with in seconds of reading about Trey Jordan, I knew what had to be done. Gifts and cards for customers were instantly cancelled. A decision to allocate the resources for customer gifts was going to be used to help Trey and his family. JPC, and on behalf of all of our customers who make it possible to give, needed to go a different direction.

I contacted the editor of the story , Christopher Lawlor. He was kind of enough to spend some time with me and give a back ground of Trey’s story. After speaking with Chris, I placed a call to Bob Collins and Trey’s mother, Chanda. Chanda, a single mother of two, told me an amazing story of Trey’s passion, courage, and will to fight. Chanda was recently a contractor for Sprint, working 40 + hours a week, almost 75% finished with her initial contracting period to become a full time employee. Chanda made a decision to spend time with her son while he underwent chemo, and Sprint made a decision to end their contract with her. I wont say anymore on that; I’ll let you be judge of that. Bob is Trey’s coach, and father of seven. Bob is with Trey’s team right now in FL at he Pop Warner Super bowl and those young have been playing their hearts out for Trey, who is undergoing chemo as I write this. Below is the text from the USA today story that Chris wrote:
“Trey Jordan exudes inspiration. He has become a touchstone for his Park Hill Panthers junior midget football teammates.

Jordan, 13, wishes he could suit up at the Pop Warner Bowl this week. Instead, he continues chemotherapy after being diagnosed May 1 with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

Jordan, who played the previous four seasons as a defensive tackle and tight end, attended three games this fall, donning his No. 73 jersey as the honorary captain.

“He never gives up,” Panthers coach Bob Collins says. “That’s what Trey is about on and off the field.”

According to medical website kidshealth.org, osteosarcoma is the most common type of bone cancer. In most cases, it affects male teens during growth spurts.

Jordan, from Kansas City, Mo., first felt pain in his right knee last spring, and within weeks of the diagnosis he began chemotherapy. In August, he had limb salvage surgery, when a prosthetic knee and titanium rod were inserted in his right leg.

Jordan’s inner strength is fueled by an indomitable spirit: “My goal is to play next season.” He currently walks with crutches.

The Pop Warner Super Bowl is an annual week-long event held in December at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The event consists of 64 teams from eight regions playing in four age-weight classifications — Junior Peewee, Peewee, Junior Midget and Midget.

Park Hill (13-2) lost Tuesday afternoon in the Division II junior midget national semifinals against the Waterbury (Conn.) Patriots 35-8. Friday’s third-place game will conclude the postseason run. ”

I realize that it is up to us, and corporate America, to lead and show others how to be involved and make a difference. It is my believe that making a difference starts individually. Being involved, locally, nationally, and globally and helping individuals will shape the way they in turn act towards others. This holiday season, instead of being so concerned about the gift you are getting, or the amount of gifts that you must buy for others, or the new upgrades in your kitchen…..Think about giving back, and letting someone know you care. That’s a gift that truly will keep giving.

Happy Holidays,

Jason

Chanda, Trey and Jayda: I hope to see you all in San Diego soon. Trey, your an inspiration. You and your family will always be in our prayers. Merry Christmas.

Chris and USA Today: Thank you. Thank you for providing me and JP Communications the information that will forever make a difference in our culture.

“Cyber Monday” sales jumped over 25% from 2005. coM Score networks estimates that close to $680 million dollars were spent shopping on sites like Amazon and Ebay. What does this tell us ( aside from the fact that our employees love to use internet connections on company time) ? Well, we know a few things from this:
1) Shoppers hate lines.
2) Shoppers hate waiting.
3) Shoppers LOVE choice.
4) Shoppers love a clean, robust UI.
5) THE INTERNET IS REAL.

$680 million dollars in 1 day of shopping. That is absolutely amazing. Consumers are under the impression that they can get a better deal online. They know that by visiting the small e-tail outlets, significant advantages can be realized when purchasing from a small wholesaler or dropshipper selling merchandise to the average “joe” in little quantities. As I scour our customer base on Toptenwholesale , Offpricenetwork , WholesaleU and Wholezilla.com , I can easily see that most wholesalers, manufacturers, importers and distributors have adjusted thier minimum orders so low to the point that the average consumer can afford to now buy direct. Where has the supply chain gone? I’ll save the answer to that question in time to come, but all of Wholesalers out there still requiring large minimum orders and believing that volume discounts only exist with quantity….You’d better think again.

Jason Prescott

The AP just reported that Google snapped up YouTube for $1.65 bil. To date:
1) YouTube has yet to turn a profit
2) Was involved in “litigation” for copyright infringement ( though the AP reports these suits were settled).
3) They are also run by a 29 year old CEO and 27 year old CTO.

Well, they also:
1) Have millions of unique visitors per month.
2) 100% brand loyalty.
3) A platform that makes sharing videos with world simple.
4) Worldwide media attention.
5) A CEO and CTO who live , sleep, and breathe .COM
6) Wild passion about their business.
7) A sense of urgency to deliver products that the users want.
$1.6 billion dollars.
9) A desk full of the most qualified resumes in the world.
10) oh..Did I forget? They now have GOOGLE.

Congratulations Mr. Hurley and Mr. Chen! Silicon Valley needs more visionaries that understand usability and what exactly it is that users want. I think this is a great acquisition on Googles part. YouTube will help Google deliver the “world’s information” and add, yet, another platform to deliver adowrds.

Yahoo and MSN are sooooooo far behind. Maybe, just maybe, if they started caring about users and customers instead of margins and revenues, they’d catch up. Fat chance.

Jason

Traffic, qualified traffic is everything! Google latest move is a consideration of YouTube for $1.6 billion dollars. Why is it that these incredibly large, profitable, and intellectually prominent corporations are spending billions on acquisitions instead of creating their own products?

Simple. One word: Loyalty to a service and traffic.

YouTube has million of users whom are loyal to the product, enjoy the interface, and love the executive team. Yes… A 29 year old visionary who understand usability and giving the user what they want. Simple formula.

Would you pay $1.7 billion for YourTube? I would. It’s a steal. Millions of users equals millions of clicks and views. Put that on a proprietary network owned by Google and you have a bigger cash cow. Why make YouTube an affiliate and pay them 50% of a click, when you can buy them outright and take home 100% of the bid, view, impression and action of every user and advertiser. just like Mr. Murdoch “stole” MySpace for a mere $800 million, the same will happen to YouTube.

Search engine marketing is transforming at lightening speed. This transformation is being forced by marketers who need to target specific markets. Google, Yahoo and MSN crawl through billions of websites. A majority of the searches done on the major search engines is either a consumer related search or a web surfer looking for information on a topic. It’s simply not possible to sift through billions of web pages. Business to Business marketers are now relying on vertical search engines ( also know as specialized search engines ) to target the audiences that are relevant to their business models. Web users are also becoming much more reliant on vertical search engines to quickly find information, products, or research on a certain topic or industry.
Vertical Search engines, like Toptenwholesale.com , offer both marketers and users a very unique experience. Toptenwholesale focuses on being the information super highway of wholesale merchandise. A store owner, reseller, ebay seller, or retailer can find millions of products offered by 1000’s of wholesalers at any time. One will also find editorial coverage on the industry, forums, and blogs all related to wholesale, wholesale marketing, product sourcing, and successful strategies for reselling merchandise. Wholesalers, Importers, and manufactures know that they can reach a highly qualified buyer by advertising on Toptenwholesale or one of its affiliate sites ( Wholesaleu , Offpricenetwork, or Wholezilla). Well over 15,000 retailers use Toptenwholesale and its network every day locate wholesale goods and over 1000 wholesalers use the Toptenwholesale to display their wholesale goods in front of an entire marketplace.
Marketers are always thirsty for new ways to increase their ROI. In the inline game, this can online be done by increasing your CTR ( click through ratio) which will inevitably lead to much higher conversion ratio. Businesses need conversions, not clicks. It’s very true that Goofgle and Yahoo can you send 1000’s of clicks a day. But let’s face it, it makes much for sense for a marketer to pay top dollar to get 100 clicks and 10 conversions, than have to fight for 1000 clicks and get only 10 conversions. Google and Yahoo are great search engines. There is just no way fore them to truly regulate the types og keywords that their clients are purchasing. A small wholesale company, imoprting goods and reselling them to stores, should not have to compete against companies like Sam’s Club and Costco for keywords like “wholesale”. Wholesale is defined as the business of buying and selling goods in quantity, at a discount, so that those goods can be resold to consumers. Do you go to Costco to buy goods and resell them to your neighbor? I don’t think so. Small mom and pop wholesalers can not compete with an advertising budget as enormous as Costco’s in the online marketing world. The only way to compete is to find vertical , niche outlets where true regulation is done, and an ROI can be achieved with out breaking the bank.
As SEM ( search engine marketing ) transforms, marketers will continually hunt down niche marketers for their clients. The major engines are already trying to address this threat they face. However, the problem with gigantic companies, is that it’s almost impossible for them to think niche. Google and Yahoo have laid a great foundation. It’s now time build and construct new levels of search in the spirit of giving the internet user and marketer much better, more relevant experience.

Jason

**Yahoo Warns of Slower Ad Growth
In Some Categories, Rattling Investors***

A slowing in search engine marketing is far from happening. Yes, the majors: Google, Yahoo, MSN will inevitably see slow downs due to 1 fact: Marketers in the B2B sector are searching for vertical search engines and other , more targeted, places to spend thier ad dollars. It’s true, that for as little as .10 , .15 cents a click one can get a massive amounts of clicks on Google or Yahoo. I don’t know about you, but I’m not after clicks. Madison Avenue wants a higher ROI and that only come by improving your CTR ( click through ratio ) and conversion ration. It’s much more appealing for B2B marketers to default to a minimum .50 cent bid and have thier ads served on targeted search engines like Toptenwholesale or Business.com
The internet search game is going to change dramatically over the next 5 years. Change will be led by marketers; as they seek online outlets focused on THIER business instead of thier wallets.

Jason

If you are looking for some alternate sources of SEO and SEM, I highly reccomend taking a look at Paul Bruemmer’s blog. Paul is truly one of the few REAL experts on SEO and a pioneer of search engine marketing. I’ve found Paul’s blog, located at http://paulbruemmer.typepad.com to be an incredible source of knowledge for booth rookie seo’s and the most seasoned experts in the field. Go and take a peek. You’ll be thrilled with some of the secrets he makes availialbe to the public.

Jason

Let’s face it, when I query the term “wholesale” on Google and find 232,000,000 matching results, I almost cringe at attempting to locate a result that would possess any relevancy to what I am looking for. The Tier 1’s ( yahoo, google, msn) are getting too big, to fast. Google has over 100,000 advertisers. Now, you be the judge in this scenario of what makes more sense:
1) You are small importer of a hot new remote control car.
2) You would like to fund a ppc account and do some paid search.
3) Ok..You go to google and set a budget of $25 a day on the keyword “wholesale remote control cars”.

Bingo…Now you’re ready to get some killer response because we all now that there can’t be too many wholesale companies out there buying the search term “wholesale remote control cars”.

Errrrr…..Wrong! As a matter of fact, I just counted over 78 advertisers purchasing that terms. Companies like: Yahoo, Ebay and Autosite are all purchasing that term. How in the world do you plan on competing with multi billion dollar companies? Better yet, why in bloody heck is Google letting companies that have nothing to do with that search term, purchase keywords that have absolutely no relevancy to their business? Here is your answer: Google does the best they can to monitor and approve ads. However, there is no way possible to monitor everything out there. The very fact that companies like Yahoo, Ford, UPS, Salesforce, or Ebay can purchase any keyowrd they want to ( just for the sake of traffic) should raise the eyeballs of every marketer on Madison Avenue. Your budget of $25 a day will never, ever, ever let you compete, or be on the top of a sponsored search result when forced to compete against those with budgets of 1,000,000 a day. Yes folks, that $1 MILLION DOLLARS a day.

Vertical Search attempts to solve that problem. Vertical engines place a high level of integrity on their search results and tend to focus on 1 or 2 specific market niches. Take a look at Toptenwholesale or even Buisness.com. Toptenwholesale is B2B only search engine where only true wholesale companies can advertise. Users, or retailers, that come to the site expect to find true wholesale sources when they come to Toptenwholesale looking for wholesale products. If one were to go Google, and do a search for wholesale electronics, they would find companies like Best Buy and Circuit City on top the paid search results. We all know that those two companies are retail stores, not wholesalers! So, in effect, those paid search results being brought to you by Google really stink. Now, go to Toptenwholesale, and do a search for wholesale electronics, and tell me what you find. Companies like: Jacob’s Trading, Via Trading and Big Deals Outlet. These are true wholesale companies who have exclusive agreements with major brand names or big box retailers on true wholesale goods such as : tv’s, dvd players and ipod’s.
Vertical search is not the reinvention of the wheel. It’s the fine tuning of the great work that Google and others have done to pioneer search. There are 1000’s of industries and professions throughout the world. Through pure capitalism, on vertical engines, the best of the breed in any industry will fight to be on top offering searchers are highly relevant result to what they are searching for. Advertisers are also willing to pay much more for qualified leads. Though a vertical search engine will never get the kind of traffic that is generated by a 1000 pound gorilla like Google or Yahoo, the type of traffic that goes to sites like Toptenwholesale, Business.com, Searchenginestratedgies.com or Webdeveloper.com are very savvy users who marketers pay very close attention to.
As an industry professional, and advanced web surfer, I can assure you that I tend to turn to industry specific sites and search engines before I try Google or Yahoo. I just know that I’ll find a better search result, and the last thing I want to do is sort through 232,000,000 results. Hopefully they’ll start listening soon.

Jason-

It is. It really is. If my head only had the same rocket power! Watch out for this guy.

Jason-