I really am sorry about all the political references.  But is seems that is all that is on TV these days.

Anyway, (my wife says the correct term is “Anyhow”), but Anyway, i just heard a comment on the news that said, ” As as politician, you need to “appear” genuine”.

Wait, can you use double, quotes?  Whatever..

But, for me that stood out.  “APPEAR GENUINE”?

To put on an appearance, doesn’t that mean to fake being genuine?

Okay, the point of this is that I, ME, Tim Blankenship am genuine in everything I do.  I am just me being be.  Good or bad.  Like me or hate me.  It is not for me to decide.

I just emailed a long time friend of mine, Connor MacIvor who does real estate here in Santa Clarita.  And who taught me much of what I know about online marketing…

I said, “Hey, Connor!, I just found out something interesting.  I have written over 1,300 articles, recorded over 800 videos and podcasts, and the only thing people are talking about is my camping trip.”

What I am referring to is the fact that my wife encouraged me to write about our family and just random stuff.  Even how I mow our lawn.

The funny thing is that more people relate to my personal blog that the infinite amount of amazing information I have written about divorce…. laugh out loud.

Anyways, I wrote about this more in the article previous to this.

I was just interesting to come across the mainstream media saying politicians need to “appear genuine”.

Just be genuine.  That is how i am.

Tim

This is a bit of an offshoot to the article prior to this where we talked about Stephen Colbert and his guests, but in watching the end of the interview with Joe Biden, I was a bit taken aback.

Forget about political views and all.  Because for me, I vote for the person, not the party. But my point is that I has written how I had drank the punch and was interested in Donald Trump and Ben Carson then…

Then, I watched this show with Joe Biden.  He is just so relatable…

People are attracted to people who they can relate too.  I can only imagine that the information I have put out on our blogs, videos and podcast relate to some people.

To others they don’t.

And that is fine…

What I wanted to say here, is that people relate to relatable people.  People want to connect in some way with the people they vote for and for the people they do business with.

That is why, at the urging of my wife, I have started just writing… Not about how to get divorced, but about me, my family, things I am interested in, etc.

Want to know the funny thing?

As of this article, I have written over 1,300 articles.  And I get all types of feedback from my articles about how to get divorced in California and other helpful information.

But I only started writing these more personal articles about a month ago.

And do you want to know what people ask me about on the phone or in person?

Yep, my personal “Tim’s personal Blog” articles where i just talk about my family, friends, things I have done, etc.

Shoot, the other day, I wrote an article about How I mow My Lawn and people called me and said, “Oh, I read the article about your lawn”, or ” I read the article about “ How the Santa Clarita Magazine allowed an attorney to take advantage of you”

People relate.  And I found it fascinating to learn that people, while they likely read and article, watched a video, or listened to a podcast about divorce, the most comments I get when someone calls me is about my personal posts.

Powerful.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Tim

I am not a fan of late night.  Not because I don’t like comedy, but because I am usually in bed by 8 p.m.

But I had a renewed interest when news of David Letterman aired.  I thought of all the good shows I missed.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not staying up late. I am recording them and watching them either on the weekends or when I get home from the office.

But it has taken some time to come to find him funny.  I am now watching the 5th installment, and I think I finally find him funny.  It is like when you try a new movie series, it takes time to buy into the character.

Anyways, tonight I am watching Stephen Colbert and he has Joe Biden and the Uber Exec., Travis Kalanick, which I am interested in seeing.  But, before he gets to them, there is much fun made at the Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Rick Perry.

Don’t hate me or love me, but I think I have had drank the punch, because right now I am liking Donald Trump.  We’ll see what happens.

(as a side note, after watching the first Republican Debate, I liked both Trump and Carson.  So different.  Interesting that they are both polling well)

But the reason I brought up Donald Trump is that, if anything, he is an amazing marketer.  Whether you love him or hate him, you are talking about him, and that just promotes him more.

I bring this up because, as a business person and marketer, I find it interesting that someone, … What do the call him?… a non establishment guy?…, can lead the polls.

Maybe I need to be more political and just tell it how it is.  I think I do that though, in my own way.  I mean, I do put out tons of content on how to handle your divorce, and the “Tim’s personal blog” is more of just a way of ranting and writing freely off the top of my head.

Anyways, I don’t want this to be a political rant, just a way to speak my mind is all.

Back to Stephen Colbert and his guests.

Talk to you soon.  Tim

 

 

I could not let the grass go without being mowed another day.  I had been waiting for a cooler day to mow the lawn, but that day has not come.

So today, I got out early and fired up the lawnmower and took care of business.  I have always enjoyed mowing the lawn, not so much the work, but making it look good. Nobody can seem to do it the way I like to have it look.

I have even been able to keep it green, despite the drought and watering restrictions now down to 2 days per week.

Want to know the secret?

2 things that have helped.

First, I read that if you mow without the bag and allow the trimmings to remain on the lawn that it will act as mulch and help to keep the water from evaporating.

Second, I raised the height on my mower at least a full inch, if not more, to allow the grass to grow much taller.  Again, to help keep the water from evaporating.

While most of my neighbors keep their lawns very short, they are mostly yellowing. They ask me and I tell them the 2 things I have done, but most of them have a lawn company so they don’t have any control over this.

Now aside from having to do a little grocery shopping, I have the day to myself….. Which I will probably spend, as I am now, in my home office getting my marketing done for the week so when I am at work Monday thru Friday I can focus on my clients.

A Great Window Cleaning Company

I should mention that yesterday, Saturday, I had a window cleaning company come out to clean our windows.  They did a great job and wanted to give them a mention here. The company I used is See Spot Go Window Cleaning.  They have a great Facebook presence and while I did not need them for the last few months, they were top of mind when I needed my windows cleaned.  Here is their number. (661) 295-3967. I also wrote a quick review on Facebook.

 

And I am flying solo again this week.  My wife is traveling out of town again for work. Our kids mostly take care of themselves, but I do have to take my son to school and to tutoring every day which really cuts into my work schedule.  Knowing this in advance, I did go in and work for a few hours on SaturdayBut nothing really changes other than that.  I do most of the cooking around here, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Have a good Sunday.

Tim

I had to laugh. I met with a client the other day in my office and as I always ask, “how did you hear about us?”

He says, ” I saw you everywhere!”

So here is how he explained it.

He said he was first referred to us by a friend who had used our service.  Then he looked us up online and said he found us everywhere.  He found our blog, videos, podcast, awesome reviews and even read several of my articles.

I have to admit that it is pretty cool to do this whole online marketing thing.  Online marketing really provided freedom in advertising.

What I tell my wife is that writing all the articles and recording all the videos and podcasts does two things.

It either makes you like me or hate me.

Why would I say that?

Well, you know that we all make assumptions about people before we ever meet them. And we can’t help it.

For instance, I can look at someone and know everything about them and whether I will like them or hate them.

Of course, I am wrong every time.  But you get what I am talking about here.

When people read my articles, watch my videos or listen to my podcast, they make a decision.

The decide if they like me or hate me.

The people who, in that split second, decide they don’t like me, will never call me.

And I am okay with that!

Why? Because they won’t waste my time by calling me.

Now, on the other hand. The people who do like me, call me, and we have instant rapport.

See where I am going with this.

Try to get that from some written magazine article.

Tim

 

 

The last 2 weeks have been super crazy busy for new business.  It happens every year after the kids have gone back to school.  I wrote an article about this in the past.

This is why you are seeing about 2 weeks since I have last wrote.

I have been so busy, I have been working morning to night and even on the weekends. Holidays mean nothing anymore.  In fact, I was working just this past labor day.  Clients even commented on email saying they received an email from my on Monday.

In fact, I am writing this very post on a Saturday afternoon.

What I wanted to write about here is about how great it is to know how to advertise on the internet. I am not talking about paid advertising, but just the fact of having the ability to write a blog post, record my voice on a podcast or record a video.

This last 2 weeks, while meeting clients, my blog, videos and podcast came up.  People kept commenting that they had read an article, watched a video or listened to my podcast.

While I know that I gain clients by the information I post, I sometimes cringe when people say they read, watched or listened to a particular piece of information I posted.

I mean I know people consume the information I create, it is just interesting to hear when people comment on it in the flesh.

When I write or record my videos or audio, I do so with the mentality that nobody is going to read or watch them.  I guess this is my way of being able to just turn on the camera, hit record and say what comes out of my mouth.

I mean I do have a plan of what I want to say, I just don’t write a script or practice.  Everything is just one take. And if I make a mistake, I will actually correct myself on the video and just keep going.

I think people like the rawness of what I do.

Anyways, the other point I wanted to make is that by having learned how to market my business online through a variety of different ways, It also gives me the freedom to get rid of unnecessary offline marketing methods.

When I first started this business 5 years ago, it was purely via blog posts and video that I marketed myself.  And I did well.

Then, after about a year, I started doing more traditional marketing by adverting in magazines and mailers.

But what I found is that the return on investment was just not the same with offline marketing.

When i first started, I would literally write 10 articles a day on my blog and record as many videos as I could and upload them to my blog and Youtube.

This cost me nothing but my time. (which of course is valuable) but not when you don’t have clients.

But over the years, I realized I was spending about $5,000 per month on offline advertising.  It started with just one magazine and then another, but somehow that became $5,000 per month in advertising costs.

The problem with this is that I was not getting at least $5,000 in return for the marketing dollars I was spending.

So this month, I cancelled all my offline advertising.

And I went back to the grass roots marketing that worked early on.  Online marketing.

Guess how much I spend on online advertising? (aside from google adwords)

ZERO.  Yep, zero, all it costs is my time, because I am the one that creates, uploads, records and does all the work. Yes, it took reading and learning how to do this over a period of several years, but it is now the most cost effective marketing strategy.

Besides the money issue, I also wanted to talk about the freedom online advertising gives you.

But instead of making this a super long post, I am going to write a separate article all together about this issue.

Talk to you tomorrow. (or in about 15 minutes)

Tim

Yes, my wife was right, again.  As usual.

She had been on me for the last few months, telling me that I have great information about divorce on my blog, but that I need to come across as a person and not just a website that has information on it.

So a few weeks ago I started a new category on my blog which is called, “Tim’s Personal Blog” which is just a tab on my blog that takes you to the posts where I just write about myself and family.

The point of this is that the other day I received a call from a potential client who lived in Los Angeles.  He was a super nice guy, but they had some concerns about doing business “online”.

But what was it that put him at ease?  Not my kind, helpful voice.  Not the fact that we have great reviews.  Not the fact that the phones were answered every time by our receptionist.  The list goes on.

What put him at ease?  The fact that I had some articles and posts about my family and the last camping trip.  The fact that I wrote an article about a divorce attorney in Santa Clarita named Steven Chroman that didn’t treat us all that nice.  That is what put him at ease.

Yes, again, my wife was right.

But don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of just writing about personal things.  I love to write and sometimes I get tired about writing about divorce. But it pays the bills.

It just reminds me that this business of divorce is a personal one.  People want to deal with people.  And they want to deal with good people.

That said, I was glad that this (now a client) did his due diligence and homework to make sure we were legitimate.  People don’t do this regularly and there are people out there that will take advantage of you.

In fact, I really hate getting the calls from people who were taken advantage of, maybe they took their money and didn’t do the work, and now they have a bad idea of what our industry stands for.

And for those of you who read my personal blog, I apologize for the last couple of weeks.  I have not posted very often.

We have gotten very busy and that whole camping trip really put me behind being out of the office for a few days.

I do have another article i have to write this week.  This is one is about how the Santa Clarita Magazine allowed a divorce attorney to write a negative article about me.  And when I wrote a response for the Santa Clarita Magazine,they refused to allow in the magazine.

The publisher of the magazine said they made a mistake allowing that article to be published, but they came far short of apologizing.  Look for the article soon.

 

I swear, when you have a business and try to take a few days off, it is like when you were a kid going to school and you miss a few days of school.

What they say is that you have to double the amount of time you miss because not only do you miss those days, but you fall behind on top of having to do the new work.

That sure has happened to me.

And I only took 2 days off. I suppose this is a good problem to have, having a lot of work to do seeing as that is what i do for income.

I returned lest Wednesday and am still playing catch up. Between the current case load and the new cases we take on, it is keeping me very busy.

This week we started 5 new divorce cases and it is only Tuesday.

I talked about the “divorce season” starting when the kids go back to school. and I sure was correct as this week has been very busy.

Okay, I have to talk a little bit about the camping trip I went on.  I talked a lot about going camping at 9,500 feet and how I was concerned about getting altitude sickness.  Well, after all that talk and worry, our campsite was at only 6,000 feet.  So we were fine.

The site we had was nice, had a stream right behind the motorhome and we fished, hiked and had a great time.  I will see if I can slip some pictures in here.

Just a short post today.  Kids are back in school, work is humming and Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

Oh, speaking of which, has anyone ever deep fried a turkey?  I really want to try it this year. I just need to order the deep fryer early because home depot, Lowe’s and Wal-Mart sell out every year very fast.

Until next time.

Okay, so It is looking like at least once a week I am up at 3 or 3:30 a.m. and flat out can’t sleep. What better time to knock out a blog post.

This week we are working on getting ready for our camping trip to Grays Meadow in Independence, CA. In the last post about our camping trip, I was said I wanted to discuss more about what I learned about going up at high altitude.  Know I know this is no Mt. Whitney, but the experts say anything over 8,000 feet and you should take some precautions.

Here is what I have learned.  There are people talking online about taking a few over the counter drugs and vitamins that could help alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness.

1.  Ginko Biloba – i read that you should take either this 5 days and during your trip at high altiude.

2.  A product called “altitude Adapt” which I learned of on another website in Colorado which was suggesting using it so not to ruin your trip.

3.  Advil or similar product. My brother said he was camping at bout 8,500 feet a few months ago and felt like his eyeballs were going to pop out of his head. His young son did not feel well either. It was so bad that they had to drive down the hill in the middle of the night. He was told by a friend to take Advil.  He said that his symptoms were gone in about 20 minutes.

4. Stay Hydrated / Eat Carbs – I read that you should stay hydrated and drink lots of water. That makes sense.  I also read that you should eat lots of carbs.  I assume because you are burning more calories as your body struggles at the high altitude.

We are hoping for a nice trip, but are prepared to come back early if necessary.

Okay, enough on that.

How about Donald Trump? I don’t know about you, but I am more excited about watching a Republican debate than in anytime in the past.  Not that I have decided on who I am going to vote for, but I think it will be a breath of fresh air to see a non-politician on stage and am interested in seeing what he says and how the others react.  I’ll comment more on this after the debate this Thursday.

I think I better try to get another hour or so of sleep or today is going to be pretty tough.

Hey there those of you who may be reading this.  Yeah, I know I help people with divorce cases in California, but I also help people who are awesome at their job by posting reviews and taking time out of my Sunday to write specifically about people who deserve recognition.

This article is about Brian Webb at Ontario Mazda Hyundai. HIs cell number is 909-618-2462.

So this all started on a Friday night. My middle brother called me to say that he had spoken to our mom whose current vehicle was not working so well. Honestly, is was probably just a new battery but the car was 10 years old and you know there are going to be problems.

The short story is that we got the typical run around from the local dealerships.  Old school game playing.  Remember your last car buying experience?  Yeah, just like that!

So we ended up with a guy named Brian Webb with Ontario’s Romero Mazda Hyundai.  He called me after I had submitted our info via Costco.com’s vehicle purchasing website.

Now, you never know what you’re going to get, but Brian Webb called me on a Sunday morning and by 4 p.m. my mom was driving home in her new 2015 Hyundai Tucson with all the options she wanted.

Now i could get into all the BS we dealt with talking with other dealerships, but I think you already know.  This did not happen with Brian Webb.

We had an amazing car buying experience with Brian Webb and I hope this blog post brings him many customers. He deserves it.

My mom said he was honest and “a true gentleman”.  I think that is a great testament.

I told Brian Webb that If I were to purchase a vehicle, that he would be worth the drive.  I hope my friends call him if they are need of a vehicle.