Publish or Perish

It's not that I haven't had any ideas or opinions to write about. Heaven and my friends know that i'm never lacking for opinions nor shy about expressing them. Nearly every day I'm brought up short by an idea that I tell myself I should write about. The truth? I've just been lax, lazy if you will.

But, we are moving more and more into developing and executing comprehensive social media marketing strategies to complement email marketing for a variety of clients. The time for "Do as I say, not as I do" is over and "Do as I do" is the new mantra. And, really, how can you expect prospective clients to believe you know what you're talking about if you aren't doing it for your own company?

We're really excited about all the plans in the pipeline and I hope you'll be free with your comments, suggestions, and criticisms. I promise to keep you up-to-date on what's going on over here.

By the way, the post that's dated December 15th was just posted ahead of this by a few minutes. Obviously, our timeline stretched for the launch of the new Venntive.com website, but it really is getting launched this month, March and we are definitely psyched.

Happy New Year!

2007 went out quietly for me and 2008 has already sorely tested me. But, as Elvis used to say, "Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine" and we have more than our share of ambition.

You will see many changes this year, not the least of which we are in the final stages of relaunching with a new name, new positioning, and a brand new Website to better reflect what Private Label InterActive and PrivateLabel Mail really are and do.

The new name if you didn't already know is Venntive. There'll be more about that name later.

I've been accused of having the 7 Year Itch. Maybe so! PLI turned 7 Jan. 1, 2008. That's a milestone. And, the baby has gone through a lot in those 7 years! PLI will remain the parent company, but PrivateLabel Mail will be replaced by Venntive.

We realized that the solution we market and implement for our clients is far more than an email marketing solution. It really is enterprise email marketing tools integrated with that 10% of CRM tools that people actually use into a very tightly integrated suite. Sweet! No more integration nightmares!

Along with Venntive, we are working on a completely new and exciting venture, CaducesDotMobi. A caduce(u)s is the symbol for physicians, the staff with two snakes intertwined. The mission of CaducesDotMobi is to help women all over the world better manage their families' health and wellness. For women in developed nations, we will provide a subscription-based Website with a multitude of tools and features to go toward simplifying the task of staying on top of doctors' appointments, medications, etc. For the women of the third world, we will provide a goodly portion of our net revenues to subsidize healthcare and other initiatives to improve the quality of life for them and their children.

If you are interested in learning more about CaducesDotMobi, following our progress toward launch, helping us get it launched, and becoming first subscribers, drop us an email at CaducesDotMobi at gmail dot com.

A New School Year

It doesn't matter how many years it's been since I last sat in classroom. The arrival of September, officially heraled by Labor Day is the new year even more surely than January 1st. So, it is right and fitting, apropos, that we launch the first chapter of the new Private Label InterActive bright and early in September.

PrivateLabel Mail is changing names and will henceforth be known as Venntive. Nope, that's not a typo.

Venn is the name of an Eglish logician who introduced Venn diagrams (1834-1923). Venn diagrams are usually those overlapping circles with common shared areas, especially the center where all the circles overlap and share one common area.

Venn also happens to be Norwegian for a companion and equal, someone who knows and likes another person very well, or a person who acts in a friendly and generous way to people, etc. he or she does not know.

Over the years, PrivateLabel Mail has grown a very nice CRM (Customer Relationship Management) module that makes it unique among email marketing solutions as well as CRM solutions. It is truly a turnkey, pre-integrated, suite of tools that enable small companies to have an affordable, SaaS (Web-based) solution with CRM, sales forecasting, A/P and A/R, and enterprise-level email marketing tools.

We feel Venntive better describes what this great piece of software delivers. For those of you who are current clients using PrivateLabel Mail, nothing much changes for you except the name and the logo at the bottom of the broadcasts you send. We ask that you eventually transition over to logging in to your accounts at the new Venntive site, but the PrivateLabel Mail login remains in place.

If you have not explored all the tools that are included with your email marketing account, please email to schedule a phone conversation and a demo of all that you could also be doing with your account.

Despite Everything...

"The secret of success is constancy to purpose." - Benjamin Disraeli, the only Jewish prime minister of England who brought India and the Suez Canal under rule.

Stage 1 of the Tour de France, Robbie McEwen produced a perfect sprint in the final 100 meters to come out of nowhere, surprising even the commentators in a chaotic finale and a decisive stage win. Robbie'd crashed with about 20km to go in a pileup and regained contact with the peloton with less than 10km to go. On a very narrow road, he had to push his way through a mass nearly two hundred riders, a nearly impossible feat. But, he stayed true to his purpose, appearing in the last frantic dash to the finish line to eclipse everyone else. What a finish!


Today in Stage 4, there were so many crashes, guys riding in shredded shorts, dripping blood. Alexandre Vinokourov went down hard and the huge hole in his shorts revealed a quickly darkening purple-dark red bruise covering his hip. Again, it was a race to try to get back on the back of the peloton to remain in contention. His team members led him out to bridge a huge gap, each gradually dropping off after a huge pull at the front of the team paceline. Again, he prevailed and not only regained the peloton, but made it nearly to the front to lose a little more than a minute. (Considering the smallest margin ever by which the maillot jaune was won after three weeks and nearly 2,500 miles is 8 seconds, a minute plus can be devastating.)

Despite all the conjectures, accusations, and outright guilt surrounding cycling's elite about doping, this sport at this level is awe-inspiring and a source of so many important life and business lessons. Team building, singularity of purpose, strategy, persistence, grace, fortitude, etiquette.

These are all top of mind for me right now as we prepare to launch a new Website to feature our first turnkey business suite, VENNtive, a pre-integrated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ESP (Email Solution Provider) suite for small groups with up to five users.