It's been a while since my last blog post. I've been having a hard time making time to blog because I've been so busy with several new projects that are literally re-shaping my business. Don't worry I'll be writing about them in more detail as they come out of development and start being implimented.
A few months ago, I started asking myself what other valuable services could I offer my network of Business Owners to assist in the promotion of their businesses while providing another revenue stream for mine. One thing most small to medium sized business owners can never get enough of is exposure. To meet that need I developed a specialized program to allow business owners to effectively be found by consumers who are looking for the products or services that a specific business offers (Hold tight, more details will follow.). The center of this program is creating a promotional video for participating business owners.
Below is the first Video, hot off the presses. I wanted to show it to you guys to get your opinion. I appreciate any constructive feedback. Thanks for letting me know what you think!
Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist
(Deadlines for this contest have been extended...see below...in order to accomodate affiliates who wish to promote this contest to their readers.)
Long time friend, and member of The Value Pages Group, Claudia Krusch of CK Translations recently contacted me regarding a promotion that she wanted to launch. Claudia is full of great marketing ideas, so I'm always curious to know what she has up her sleeve. To learn more about Claudia and her translating and language education business check out her appearance on the Get More Business Show.

Claudia's idea is to give away a Free Translating Package whereby she will translate a lucky winner's website or blog into Spanish (up to 5 pages)! I think this is an incredible idea. The Latino market is one of the strongest fastest growing markets in the country. Latino's tend to be savers and to a large extent have distanced themselves from the tempting easy credit traps that have hurt so many Americans. This means that Latinos are more comfortable spending right now than a lot of other people. Who wouldn't want to make their companies, products and services available to this strong segment of the American population?
So, you may be wondering where I come in with this. Claudia reached out to me because of my expansive social media network and the relationships that I have with business owners all across the country. We want to get the word out about this promotion/contest to as many people as possible.
Here's how it's going to work:
If you have a website or blog that you would like to be considered for this promotion/contest, please complete the form below. Please be assured that we will not sell your information and the only people who will have access to your contact info are Claudia and myself.
You may have noticed that I dropped the words winner and contest several times. To maximize the exposure of all parties involved - CK Translations, The Value Pages Group, and Your Business, should you choose to enter, we are going to let the public vote and choose a winner. Only one VOTE will be allowed per IP address so make sure to vote from both your home and work computer ;-) and have all your co-workers, friends, family, and contacts swing by the voting page to vote in your behalf.

Although you can only VOTE once, you can check back as often as you like to see who's ahead in the contest and how you're fairing against the competition. Click here for the VOTING PAGE.
Your website or blog URL as well as your answer to why you deserve to win will be compiled on the voting page for readers to examine before casting their VOTE, so don't skimp on filling out the form!
All entries must be received by Wednesday October 14, 2009 at Midnight (Eastern Time).
The voting period will be from Thursday October 15, 2009 at 12:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) through Monday November 16, 2009 at 11:30 a.m. (Eastern Time).
Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist
I love the weekly talk radio show that I host every Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time! The process of developing the Get More Business Show along with growing my national business network, The Value Pages Group, has been such an incredibly fun, educational, and humbling experience. Often when you start chasing your dreams you end up being surprised by what you're able to accomplish, where they take you, and how they mold the person that you are...but I digress...
The Get More Business Show has turned out to me so much more than I initially anticipated it to be. Through the show, I've been introduced to some incredible business owners, entrepreneurs, and authors. The relationships I've developed over these past few months are more than worth the effort that I've invested in developing the show. Since the show has pushed up through it's humble beginnings, it is high time I get a proper introduction jingle/song. So far I've been making due with a sharp little blues number to open my shows, but it doesn't have any lyrics and I don't think it properly hypes my listeners for my show. That's why I'm announcing:
The TVPG Radio's Jingle Contest!*
I'm a huge music lover and I think that music transcends everything, so I'm NOT limiting the contest to any particular genre or style. Artists of all types are welcome to submit an entry - from Classical to Jazz, Country to Rock, Hip Hop and R&B to Spoken Word!
The Rules:

1. Your entry must include one of the following phrases - "Get More Business", "Get More Business Show", "The Get More Business Show".
2. No profanity.
3. Your entry can be no longer than 30 seconds.
4. Don't be conservative! I want to energize people!
The Reward:
Yes, I do want a new killer intro for my show, but I also want to highlight the artists that choose to participate in this promotion and get them as much exposure as possible. In order to do that I've decided to devise a contest where the public will vote to choose the winner. The contest will be actively promoted through the show as well as through my extensive social media network. As of yet the show is more of a labor of love and not a money maker of it's own merit, so the prize will be a lot of publicity. The winner will receive:
An appearance on the Get More Business Show to talk about the business of being a musician and what you're doing to promote yourself and what you're all about.
Weekly Social Media Artist Update through Posterous. You provide me a Video or Pictures to let everyone know what you've been up to and I create a media blog post around your content on posterous which is automatically Search Engine Optimized and simulcast to 9 social media outlets. Again, it will be up to you to provide me with the content every week.What You Need To Do To Enter:
The cut off for entries is Midnight (Eastern Time) Friday September 18th October 23, 2009. (Deadline was extended to allow for more entries) We want voters to get to know you as artists, so in addition to your jingle entry, please provide an explanation as to why you think you should win. Please limit this explanation to 1500 words. Please also provide a photograph of yourself/ves. Finally, in order to give voters as much info as possible please also include your website/myspace page so that everyone can learn all they need to know in order to make an informed decision on who should win this contest. All this information should be compiled and emailed to me at Jason[at]TheValuePagesGroup[dot]com.
Make sure you put "Jingle Contest" in the subject line!
Voting will run from Saturday September 19th October 24, 2009 at 12:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) through Wednesday October 7th November 11, 2009 at 11:30 a.m. (Eastern Time). The voting webpage will list the entries, but not accept votes until the voting period begins. The winner will be announced on the October 7th Get More Business Show.
*By entering this contest each artist gives The Value Pages Group and the Get More Business Show explicit permission and license to use and promote their creative property before the contest, during the contest, and after the contest irregardless of whether they win the popular vote.
Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist
In keeping with the theme of my last several blogs, I figured I would write one more post about the iPhone. It seems like the only real negative about being an iPhone user (other than the additional cost) is the perception that it leaves on your friends, co-workers, and anyone else who may see you merrily going about your day.
Sure you may just be using your iPhone to be extra productive, but the fact that you've got a big smile on your face as you tune out your surroundings and stare into the magic that is the iPhone (highly desirable - yes, fashionable - yes, affordable - er...kind of expensive), will leave many people with the distinct impression that you're a smug a**hole (or worse). Telling them it's for your business will likely have little impact in reversing this impression
So what's a guy (or gal) to do? (We're not giving up our iPhones!) Fortunately the folks at Case-Mate have come up with just the thing to wipe all the smug off of our happy faces (if you could see our faces behind our iPhones). It's called the "Recession Case". With this case, the glamor of the iPhone is reduced and observers can see that even though you're a happy iPhone user, you're not above this recession and you're feeling the pain just like everyone else.
Instantly transform yourself from a smug a**hole to a regular Joe. And with a $0.99 price tag, it's a smart investment in a lagging economy! It's too bad they're temporarily out of stock right now, but I'll be checking back often to get my "Recession Case." Oh yeah, now you can order your "Recession Case" customized with a Sharpie Script on the back! Awesome!
Check out these comments from the product page:
Allowed me to anti-pimp my phone
RECYCLE,,RECYCLE,,RECYCLE!!!Imma firm believer in thinking GREEN. I have thown away my Leopard/Leather case. Thx Case-Mate
-Dee Dee
i dont even have an iphone and i bought iti dotn have an iphone. but i put my nokia in it. wrapped the opening with tape. and i now have a universal case.
-slickrickson
Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist
Yesterday I wrote a post about how I just got my new iPhone. Through the comment stream, Melissa Brown suggested that we list the iPhone Applicatoins that we're using. After writing a really long comment, I thought "This would make a great blog post!" So for your reading pleasure, these are the Applications I've downloaded so far:- This App is awesome. Everything I do on the computer I can now do through my iPhone. As far as I'm concerned, this is a benchmark for all iPhone Applications. Best of all...it's FREE!
Twitterrific
- I paid for the premium version. The iPhone has a nice big screen, but the loss of real estate to advertisements was just too irritating. And it's awesome! I'll probably be writing a blog post about some of it's features soon.
PCOfficeV3
- I paid for this app as well. It's basically a 10 key calculator for the iPhone. I love seeing the list of numbers that I'm working with. My old phone had that feature so I had to replace it on the iPhone.
Bump
- This app is FREE. It's purpose is to enable sharing of files or contacts from one iPhone user to another. All you do is select what you want to share, then the two parties gently "bump" their hands together while holding their iPhones. It sounds awesome, but as of yet, I haven't run into anyone to "bump" with.
- This app was FREE and its...ok. There's not a huge amount of functionality, but it does let me update my status easily and add people to my network. All in all, I'll probably use LinkedIn more because of this app and my ability to use it on the go, than I would if I had to log in on the computer.
MySpace
- I've never really really been into myspace. I have a profile there for my business. The app lets me accept friend requests, comment on things, send mail, etc. I wish the video function of myspace was represented on the app. I think the video's are one of the best attributed of myspace. For a FREE app, it's not too bad.
PicPosterous
- The point of this app is that you're supposed to be able to take pics through the application instead of the iPhone's interface and the pics that you take through the application automatically get uploaded to your posterous blog (skipping the step of having to upload them). The problem is that posterous allows you to have 3 blogs (one has to be primary) and the app doesn't give you the option of selecting which blog the media should be posted to (it automatically posts to your primary blog). For this reason I haven't used this app yet. I suspect the posterous people are working to fix this. When they do...I'll be using it - a lot. This one was FREE too.
ActiveRain
- I had to get the ActiveRain app, right? This is a FREE app (as it should be) and it's really an "eh" for me, honestly. The point (I think) is to have a listing of ActiveRain's presence on all the social media sites. Not much use to me. But on a positive note, ActiveRain works beautifully through the Safari Web Browser my iPhone is equipped with.
Y! Finance
- I get all my financial news from Yahoo, I admit it. It's what I'm used to. It's familiar. I find Yahoo to be fair and balanced and I love the way they present market information. I'm also a big fan of the Tech Ticker series. This app has it all! I love it! What do I hate about it? The Tech Ticker videos always seem to cut off before they're actually over with. I really really wish Yahoo would fix that. Otherwise, perfect! This is a FREE app.
WhitePages
- I use whitepages all the time on the computer and when I saw that they have an iPhone app, I had to have it. The ability to reverse search a phone number from my caller ID is an added bonus. This is a FREE app.
Skype
- I haven't used this app yet, but the purpose for it is that you can use your iPhone to make free calls to other Skype users as long as you're hooked up to a WiFi internet connection. Who could resist that kind of geeky cool gagetry? This is another FREE app.
iFighter
- I had to get a game in, right? This one I paid for. The game has you flying a World War 2 era fighter. Your mission is to destroy Nazi weaponry. It's highly addictive. You control the plane by tilting the phone in the direction that you want it to go. It might sound sketchy, but it's highly intuitive and fun. I cruised through the first 4 levels the first night. The drawback? There's only 4 levels.
I'm always looking for some great iPhone Apps, so feel free to share the ones that you use and love. I can't wait to get your input!
Jason Sanders @ValuePagesGroup
Business Networking Specialist
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