Yes, Integrity matters and if it doesn’t matter to you, your life, family and career mean nothing.  Especially in the world of Internet Marketing where so many wolves abound, it is time to be certain that what you are doing on line (or offline) in your business is inline with your personal values and what you stand for.

What legacy do you want to leave, one of life being all about you or one of life being about others?

What can you take with you when you die – absolutely nothing.  What do you leave behind?  Your legacy – how people remember you.

When my dad died suddenly at the age of 65, I was 27 years old and heartbroken.  Dad was a simple man, a small entrepreneur in a small business – never wealthy or famous – but I knew him as one of the most kindest, loving people on earth.  At 55, I still miss him and always will.

Dad was a first-generation American.  Both of his parents came from Ireland on boats during the potato famine.  And they were dirt poor.  When his father died when my dad was 14, he had to drop out of school after 8th grade and start working to support his family.  He never, ever, ever, ONCE, in his lifetime complained about that.  I learned a LOT about integrity and not becoming a whiner from him. He was also one of the most incredibly self-educated men I have ever known and an absolute expert on history, especially the Civil War.

What amazed me, since we led a simple life (although my parents managed to send all THREE of us children, not only through college, but graduate school by sacrificing (an old time word you don’t hear much of today), was his funeral.  We lived simply.  Dad’s business, while it was running, was small – no millionaire was he – there were no grand parties, events, mega-vacations.  But we were happy.

What amazed me, sad as I was in the funeral procession was looking back at the seemingly ENDLESS line of cars.  It went on forever.  I met people I never knew existed.  But they all came out to pay their last respects to my dad.  I had NO CLUE how many lives he had touched.  To this day, I have never seen a funeral procession the likes of which followed my father to his eternal resting place.

WHY?  Because he touched people and he touched them so deeply they HAD to pay him their last respects.  WHY?  Because he left a legacy – one which touched me and left and imprint on me forever.

Is Integrity important – in life, relationships and business…………………….you better believe it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKSktNf3TrU

Of the virtually limitless ways in which the Blog can be used, from informing us of on the spot happenings in war zones to teaching us how to knit, it has today become the virtual brick and mortar store of the online entrepreneur, in a sense transporting us back to the 1950′s where we knew the hardware store own, the druggist (as we called him) and Paul down at the deli.  It is as important to business online in the 21st century as a building for operations in the last.  It is the nerve center of your business universe.

The world of attraction marketing is not really new.  We lost in as societal norms changed, people usually did not spend their entire lives in one place knowing their neighbors from cradle to grave.  Also, the Moms and Pops couldn’t fight the big conglomerates who offer megastores at discount price.

In a fashion – a virtual fashion – it is coming back.  And in this disconnected world, I think that is a  good thing.  I notice the younger generation placing a great deal of emphasis on servant leadership and giving more knowing that what goes around usually comes around.  None of these are new ideas, but these are new platforms – the virtual platform.  So now, the Mom and Pop you might do business with could very well be in another state of another country.  But the blog is where the relationships form and grow, ideas are shared and trust is built.

All roads lead to your blog, an extension of your social media relationships and possibly, from there, to business partnerships.  That’s not to say real world person to person transactions end, in fact they can be enhanced by online relationships resulting in business networking events where you “meet” people you feel you already know very well.

It could be a simpler time is coming.  Direct sales is a multi-billion dollar industry, with the playing field leveled by the Internet and the myriad of free trainings and easier upgrades, taking the mystery away from the use of the Net.

So – if you’re in business.  Give you blog a hug today!

I don’t know why I awakened thinking of this today.  And during my caffeine injection whipped out a Hub Page article on it, Marketing to Baby Boomers – Don’t Be Surprised If They Ask for a P&L Statement but obviously it has been on my mind.  Most of what I had to say is in the article, I suppose, but we are a generation of people who for the first time really challenged their elders and were determined we’d be forever young.  To many, that makes us brats – but we are the generation that brought you Bill Gates and Steve Jobs so don’t be too harsh on us.  Marketing to Boomers requires more than the dire warnings of the state of the economy and the flashy dollar bills on websites.  They are not going to go there.  If a Boomer is going to be an entrepreneur in his older years – he wants answers.  In depth answers and mentorship.  Since we do not realize we are not 35, we usually have no problem accepting that from those younger than us who understand the Internet and the techie stuff.  We want to learn, be involve and keep on doing it, no matter how old chronologically we become.  But the marketers have to walk a fine line between reality and offensiveness.  Do not market to us as if we are old, but do not attempt to cater to us with pictures of 23 year olds in bikinis as representative of our generation.  How do you do that?  As I said, it is a fine line.  Boomers who want to work online do not need convincing – they need assurance of quality, stability, a marketing program and a reliable person.  In that sense we are the same as all others sought by attraction marketing – we want to do business with those we know, like and trust.