At a time when the biggest names in marketing are getting Google-slapped, Facebook is stepping up as an exciting alternative to the impersonal behemoth.

There are several reasons for this coming shift.  For one thing, people on Facebook spend a lot of time there, about 40 minutes a day on average.  Also, Facebook is helping to build social proof by leaps and bounds–something Google can’t do even if it tried.

Let’s face it–any sleazy marketer can have a website.  All they have to do is pay Godaddy for a name and get a cheap hosting account, and they’re in business.

But on Facebook, people get to actually know you and like you (or not).  They can easily recommend you to their friends, who recommend you to their friends, and so on, and so on.

For these reasons (as well as some other ones that I only share with my subscribers), I have begun to learn everything I can about the platform that is Facebook.  You may have already watched the videos I have up on the subject so far.  There is more to come.  A lot more.

Rebecca at her checkup with Dr. Duhart

Exactly five years ago (well, almost–I am a day late with this post), my darling little Rebecca was born at our home in St. Louis Missouri.  My husband had just started his internship at Des Peres Hospital.  All of his attendings told him that he was stupid (yes, they actually said that to his face) for letting his wife have a home birth.  To his credit, he came to my defense every time.  Of course, we were not alone in our preparations.  We had the help of an amazing doctor and his sweet wife.

My physician in Kirksville, Dr. Freeman, had known of my desire for a home birth, and had said that I was a good candidate.  As my due date approached, however, it looked like I would be delivering in St. Louis.  Since midwives were illegal in Missouri at the time (crazy, right?), I went online to research my options.  That is when I ran across information about a Dr. Fred Duhart.

The first time I met Dr. Duhart, Kent and I were down in St. Louis on a house hunting trip right before his medical school graduation.  His family practice clinic was housed in an old cottage in a commercial area over by the airport.  Ada, his wife, greeted us in a white nurse’s uniform, took care of the usual pleasantries (ie. asking me to pee in a cup, etc.), and then led me to to the back.  When he came into the room wearing Converse sneakers, I knew right away that I wanted him to attend my home birth.  He was beautiful, inside and out.  He and Kent talked at length about medical school, and somewhere in there he measured me and talked about me, the baby, and home birthing.  It was a great visit and I left feeling extremely comfortable with him as my doctor.

There was only one problem.  He lived 45 minutes away, and Amelia, the baby before, had only taken 2 hours from the start of labor to holding her in my arms.  I figured that meant that I would have this one out lickety split.  Ada told me that everything would be fine and that all I needed to do was call him as soon as my contractions started.

So, that’s what I did.  When he arrived, though, I was not very far along. He waited patiently at the foot of my bed.  At one point, he went out and got a newspaper and some hot chocolate.  Not once did he rush me.  After my hypnotherapy video ended and I was ready to push, he calmly prepared the room and let me stay in charge.  Rebecca was turned over, so I had to work a little harder to get her out.  Also, the placenta, which I insisted on letting break on its own, was especially strong.  Finally, Dr. Duhart mentioned to me that if he were to break it, she would come more quickly, but that it was completely up to me.  I tried for another half hour and told him to go ahead and do it.  Sure enough, out she popped–my 10 pound 4 ounce lovely!

As I was searching for information on Dr. Duhart, I came across this obituary article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Michele Munz. I also found out that St. Louis City and County has formally declared an annual day of celebration in tribute to him, which I thought extremely fitting.

Quoted from http://www.allbusiness.com/population-demographics/demographic-groups/12219580-1.html:

Dr. Fred Duhart Only area doctor to deliver babies in homes

Date: Friday, March 20 2009

Dr. Fred Duhart, a family practice practitioner for 38 years and the only St. Louis-area doctor who delivered babies for women wanting to give birth at home, died Saturday (March 14, 2009) after an apparent heart attack. He was 72 and lived in Normandy. He was the first African-American to graduate from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1970 and began a family practice in north St. Louis County in 1971. He held his Saturday morning office hours at his office on Natural Bridge Road the day he died.

Dr. Duhart never intended to deliver babies, his friends and family say. Soon after opening his practice, he attended a home birth with another doctor. That doctor moved out of state, and the woman passed along Dr. Duhart’s name to a friend wanting to deliver at home. “That woman told somebody else, so he did the next one. And then that woman told somebody else, and the women just kept telling each other,” said Sue Stephens, 60, of Maplewood, his office assistant. Dr. Duhart attended well over 5,000 births, she said. “He is known throughout the entire birthing community, and there’s great respect for him,” she said.

For women desiring a home birth, Dr. Duhart was their only legal option in the St. Louis area for a birth attendant. Up until last year, non-nurse midwives who work mainly in home settings were illegal in Missouri. He would travel as far south as Rolla, Mo., as far west as Warrenton and as far north as Louisiana, Mo., to deliver babies. “He just really believed in people having a choice,” said Penny Swank, a Christian Science nurse who worked with Dr. Duhart during some home births. “He was really an advocate. He was pretty much on his own.”

He made many sacrifices to provide the service. He would be gone for hours to be with laboring women - one Christmas he attended five births and was gone for over 24 hours, his family recalls.

Dr. Duhart believed home birth was a safe option for healthy, low-risk pregnancies, Stephens explained, and he would transport women to the hospital if complications arose. “It amazes me how he could do what he did and make himself available to so many people,” said Renee Baker, 35, of Bonne Terre, Mo., who had three of her babies delivered by Dr. Duhart.

Dr. Duhart married Ada Marie Vick in 1958. She had just finished nursing school, and Dr. Duhart, who grew up in Florida, was attending Northwestern University, where he was the first African-American basketball player and studied to be a teacher, his family said. He completed studies at the University of Iowa to become a physical therapist and practiced and studied further in Omaha, Neb., before being accepted at Kirksville.

Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. today and 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday at Murchison Tabernacle CME Church, 7629 Natural Bridge Road, Normandy. The funeral will follow at 10 a.m. at the church, with interment at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Velda City. In addition to his wife, among the survivors are three daughters, Kimberly Livingston of Black Jack, Barbara Johnson of Orlando, Fla., and Rachel Williams of St. Louis; four sons, Stephen Duhart, Eric Evans, Kalim Duhart and Scott Lemon, all of St. Louis; and several grandchildren.

• You can change, and you must.
• You must surround yourself with the people you want to become.  This could mean meeting them at a live event, listening to them on audio, watching them on a video, or interacting with them on a webinar.
• Become consciously aware of your thoughts and what you tell yourself.
• Understand that you’re constantly being sold.  Appreciate that fact, but do not let it affect how you make a business decision.  Take the emotion out of it.
• Money is a game.  Starting a business is not.  The track record of the founders matters more than anything else.  Sure, the product and the compensation plan are important, but if the people at the helm don’t have the experience they need to run a network marketing company, then run the other way.
• Join a sponsor with integrity, who is building their business the way you want to build yours.  If you want to build your business with PPC and social media, you don’t want to choose someone who is old-school.

The thing you have to understand is that the week before a trip like that, I am trying to get ahead in my business, and then for the week after, I am catching up.  That is because while I am at these events, I want to be totally focused on what is happening while I am there.

This last trip was especially important for a number of reasons.

For one, it was a chance for my son, Montana, to brand himself in the internet marketing community.  He was, hands down, the youngest attendee, at the ripe age of 14.  He quickly got the attention of the host of the conference, and even offered him some advice on how to manage his outgoing voicemail message to save his friends and family time when they called him.  Of course, getting his picture taken with Mark Hoverson and Ann Sieg very cool, too.

Internet Marketing Leader Mark Hoverson

Internet Marketing Leader Ann Sieg

Mark Hoverson with Montana Burr

Another very important aspect of the trip was that it was the first time since Portland that our Work at Home Mom’s group has gotten together in person.  We were able to tape 5 episodes of our internet tv show and let me tell you– it is going to be awesome!  We thought we had great energy before, but now we are even more excited!  We even have plans for a product that will revolutionize how women, particularly moms, will do business online.  Don’t worry–I’ll tell you about it later–it is too soon to let the cat out of the bag just yet

My favorite part about live events is the networking, collaborating, and friendship-forming that goes on there.  One example is the heartfelt moment Ann Sieg an I had together on the last day of the conference.  I won’t go into the details–they were personal–but I will tell you that I have a renewed respect and admiration for her.  She is truly an amazing person.

So there you have it.  A short update of what I have been up to lately.  Now–there are businesses out there needing my help, so I’ve got to go.  Talk to you again soon!

How to Recruit 8 Out of Every 10 Prospects You Talk To

An Eight Week Course
Thursdays @1:00 PM Eastern
Running from March 11 through April 29
Tuition: $50

Taught by Rana Burr, Certified Internet Business Instructor, Internet Marketing Trainer, and Social Media Consultant, along with her son, Montana, internet business owner

Your child will learn:
How to determine profitability of potential markets
How to set up a niche website
How to choose the right keywords so that their websites are found easily on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc…)
How to set up a marketing funnel to maximize earnings
How to identify affiliate marketing products for their niche website
How to build incoming links to increase the visibility of their business on the web
Advanced research and writing techniques
How to track results and do split testing for improving their site’s performance (traffic and conversions)

Tuition includes: Live instruction with Q&A over the internet once a week during class time, up to 60 minutes of one-on-one mentoring over the phone, recorded video lessons on additional material not covered in class

Rana is only accepting 10 students for this class. Call now to reserve a seat: 210-827-2596.