As an Internet Marketing Speaker, I have told thousands of people about free and low cost Internet tools for generating leads.  It is wonderful what you can do in Internet Marketing for free if you just know which tools to use.

A little while back, Google did some weird thing where they upgraded my account, built me a new gmail account and linked everything to it – all with the accidental click of one button.

I used to get emails when Google docs were updated, and this let me follow up on speaking leads right away.  Unfortunately, this thing that happened made the emails go to the new gmail account I was not using.

It took me several weeks to realize that I was not getting notified of leads that came in from those websites.  Unfortunately, one of the leads was big, close to my home and a great opportunity.  Since I was several weeks late following up I lost the opportunity.

Now I do not want to blame Google here – because I have had similar problems with other services both free and paid.

The moral of the story is that you need to test your lead generation tools every week.  If it seems like it has been a while, maybe something is not working and you are losing leads.

I also had an Internet Marketing client that I started working with recently.  They were paying nearly $1,000 a month for a service to capture and generate leads for them.  He complained that they had not gotten one lead in over 9 months.  I asked a few questions and within 24 hours we found that the leads were being sent to an old email that no one checked anymore.

Problems can occur with any system.  It is the sales manager’s job to keep an eye on these things.  One lost lead can cost you many thousands of dollars.  That is indeed the situation for me with that Internet Marketing Speaker opportunity I got.  Now I am testing thing much more frequently.

Two weeks ago I finished teaching my first 3 credit hour Internet Marketing class at a large university.

As an Internet Marketing Speaker, I am used to speaking about Internet Marketing for an hour or two.  Sometimes I even do a half day Internet Marketing Workshop.  But I was a bit worried about teaching 40 hours of Internet Marketing lecture.

I should not have been worried.  Never before in my life have I ever been so keenly aware of what 17 years of Internet marketing experience has done for me.  40 hours only scratched the surface – those poor kids.  I had to take important things out to avoid burying them under far too much information.

If you are looking for an Internet Marketing Speaker, give me a call.  I can craft the kind of Internet marketing focus that will be custom and best for your audience.  What you will NOT get from me is a general summary of social media marketing strategies, as I think this is too common and many people are tired of hearing it.  I prefer to focus on using Internet Marketing for lead generation.  This is what people really value and enjoy learning, because it can change your life in a big sort of way.

I have an odd set of skills.  I am decent at technology, a good speaker, astute marketer and passionate educator.

I am probably not great at any of these things.  I know better technology people.  I have seen better speakers that make me keenly aware of what the next level looks like.  I make an ok living with Internet Marketing, but not like the big Internet Gurus.  And in education, where I am most passionate, I do not do enough.

Starting in January I will be teaching at my second university.  But ultimately, what I really want to do is not teach – but transform.  I would like to transform learning in ways that make it about the students.  Few people know that when I quit my job at Ernst and Young many years ago, it was to form an education company.  Then we started doing consulting to pay the bills and lost site of what I originally wanted to achieve.  Just starting to explore that topic again.  I will continue to pay the bills as an Internet marketing speaker, SEO expert and consultant, but I am really looking forward to getting back into the area of education again.