resolution

“Respect is for those who deserve not demand it.”

– Paolo Cuelho

Respect is earned. This week, I’ll tell you about a man and his business who have definitely earned my respect. They should have yours, too.

The person I quote, Cuelho, is a respected writer. His colleagues respect him because they recognize the success he has achieved through doing well by perfecting his craft.

In other words, he has earned his deserved respect. His work demands it; he does not.

There are people in life you meet like that. Their work demands respect. Sometimes, you meet people that demand respect because they feel they deserve it. It is up to each of us to determine of a person or a business deservers or demands our respect.

And it is up to us to allow our work to demand respect for us.

Respect: An Interfanatic Quality

When we find good people to work with, we gladly give our respect. We pay it. And we work hard to ensure that the respect we pay is returned.

Because we know we can ask for respect all we want. We can ask for business all we want. But if we don’t earn respect, we don’t earn business.

Tim LuMaye at Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge – Where Respectable is an Understatement

Tim LuMaye has figured out how to run a business. His business is surviving the pandemic because he has built its reputation over years of hard work. He insists on quality and service for his customers. Engineers in the aerospace and energy industries aren’t always the easiest people to get along with. They’re demanding and run a tight ship – particularly if they’re doing government work – and they require honesty, transparency, and speed on a budget.

Tim has built Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge through the years by doing all of that, garnering huge respect from his customers and competitors along the way. Need an exotic titanium? I’ve got a guy for that. It’s Tim LuMaye, and his business is Aero-Vac Alloys & Forge, in Kamala, Washington.

“Luckily, through hard work…, we were … able to improve on an already exceptionally performing website.”

We redesigned and rebuilt the AVAF website over ten years ago with an emphasis on SEO. It began to work. Slowly at first, then after a long build, he has a steady stream of leads coming in through the site based on organic traffic alone.

So when he came to us last year for a complete redesign to include some new features, we knew we had a high bar to reach. We set it a decade ago.

Luckily, through hard work and vast experience, we were actually able to improve on an already exceptionally performing website. It was good timing, too, because the boost in organic traffic came just as Tim’s business should have been slowing down. Because we worked hard to ensure we did Tim’s project right, things were better than they could have been.

Normally, when you launch a redesigned site, you expect organic traffic to dip. That’s the norm. We managed to increase traffic on launch.

Interfanatic put in the extra effort because we respect Tim and what he and his staff have built. We honor their efforts with our own. Tim LuMaye has earned our respect through years of great relations.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Business Content Piece

One key to proper on-site SEO is ensuring keywords and keyphrases appear in good proportion on your site. If your site doesn’t have the keywords your customers seek, they won’t find your site. Search Engines won’t know your site is where your customers should go.

One way to ensure your site has those keywords sprinkled throughout is through continual content that features those keywords. Our talented writers don’t write drivel laced with keyword spamming; they provide truly valuable content your customers seek. We make sure the Search Engines know your website is the resource resource your customers are looking for.

Need some fresh content? We can help with that. We produce it, you approve it. Then, use your fresh content for your site, your social media, your emails, or all of it – whatever you think will get you business.

Interfanatic: Working to Deserve Respect

We don’t demand respect. We work for it. If you work for your respect, we should be an excellent addition to your team. Ask us.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Trees live for years, witnessing the goofiness of their human counterparts, hopefully not being hurt by it, and lending their beauty and strength to us. I took this image one night close to sunset, near home. This tree has been on my block perhaps longer than my house – closing in on a century. The families and homes have changed around it. Its neighbors are new. It gets blasted by gale winds, it is rained upon, and it is baked by the warm California sun. Every day, every year. It is resilient against the cruelties of time and the cruelties of its neighbors. When I go before these trees, cursing the frawns they litter, I need to remember that they will outlast me. And if I don’t make a lasting impact, the will outlast the memory of me, too. That’s why we work hard in this digital, impermanent medium. To make a lasting impact on peoples businesses, their lives. We’re here to help.

“Every obstacle yields to stern resolve.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

Stern resolve.

Goodness what a week.

In business, as in life, most often a stern resolve combined with communication will win the day. Not always. But most often.

We must be resolute in our beliefs, and yet we must communicate to understand where our beliefs may fall short. Our will is not always enough. Luck is important. Yes, we can do what we can to make our own luck, but fortune may be fickle. We must have the people on our side. Our constituents. Our clients, our customers. And to have people on our side, to succeed, we need luck, resolve, and the truth at our backs.

Resolve without truth may win the day, but it will not succeed when the truth comes out.

Resolve without luck will probably not succeed. Also, resolve without work will not succeed. You have to put in the effort, with truth and luck at your back.

And so, this week while we celebrate resolve, I think of Jeff Schreiber. There’s a man with resolve and all the things that need to go with it: truth, luck, and effort.

(Except that he’s a Jets fan. Unfortunately no amount of resolve will overcome that lot of luck.)

Resolve: An Interfanatic Quality

The most resolute person without the truth will fail. We saw that this week. The most resolute person without effort will fail – I see this all the time. The most resolute person with out luck will fail. It’s out there, but those are the people we don’t see. Hopefully perseverance combines with karma to make things right.

But even if you have luck and effort and truth, if you lack resolve your success will be short-lived. Until you stumble upon the next thing that trips your trigger.

When we start a project, we resolve to finish it.

Da Vinci needed resolve through his career. His masterworks are a testament to his resolve – even if his timetables were not. We’re not talking about that detail though, we’re talking about the finished product. And his finished products are phenoms. So are his many unfinished projects, but can you imagine what might have come from him if he’d had the resolve he needed to finish all his projects?

That’s why, it is my goal as a man of business to show you that our resolve can be your asset. We’re here to take on your project, and once we have taken it on, we’re here to complete it with you. Allow our resolve strengthen your business and bring you to a competitive place of plenty. It may take time, it will take time, but together we will get you to your goals.

Resolute Jeff Schreiber

A person we worked with who is resolute in achieving his goals, not just for himself, but for his people, is Jeff Schreiber, owner of Hansen Wholesale.

Ecommerce is a monster industry. Amazon is the elephant smothering the planet. Jeff’s Hansen Wholesale was the first business selling ceiling fans online, and despite the odds they’re still on top.

“Jeff works his tail off, and he knows what he’s doing is right. He runs an honest business.”

Jeff has all the pieces required to succeed. He refuses to give up. Schreiber is resolute of will to succeed against mounting odds. He has some luck on his side, Jeff works his tail off, and he knows what he’s doing is right. He runs an honest business.

As a result, Jeff is successful, against the odds. He resolved to take care of his people and his customers, and so he does.

When we got to work with Jeff on content creation, social media, search ads and email not long ago, it was a great pleasure. It’s always great to work with people like Jeff: resolute, and a person who surrounds himself with good, hard-working, resolute people.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Power Email Marketing

Email every hour is annoying. Email once a week might be annoying if you’re not doing it right. But sending an email every couple of weeks seems to be the Goldilocks answer for many businesses, given their customer engagement and their ability to produce useful content.

To do email right, you must have resolve. You can’t just wing it. Your customers will get annoyed. Your emails will end up in the spam folder, and nobody will look forward to reading them.

We’re here to help.

Interfanatic: Resolute

We will get through this. We will help you get through this. That’s our job.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Concrete pillars are resolute, holding the sky at bay. A cathedral is the ultimate personification of resolution to The Almighty. They stand for hundreds of years, fighting time with resolution. This cathedral, the Duomo of Milan, took about five hundred years to complete. You think your bathroom remodel requires will, how about that?