Andrew Carnegie, and many business tycoons of years gone by, understood the exponential power gained by focusing the talents and skills of small teams of people into mastermind groups to excel on a single goal or task:

“It is the fuel that allows common people
to attain uncommon results.”
- Andrew Carnegie

Many of today’s business leaders also credit master mind groups for their success.

Within the next few weeks, I will be organizing a series of mastermind groups, focused on individual topics, for today’s business leaders. The first three topics will be:

1. Blogging: Beginning to advanced; setting up a WordPress blog
2. CRM: Setting up and getting the most out of any CRM system
3. Audio/Video: How to produce great podcasts and videos without spending a lot of time and money

My goal is to make my mastermind groups the single best investiment you have made in your career.  These mastermind groups will be for serious professionals who understand the need for active participation.

By design, I will have to limit the number of people in each group to make sure that each person receives the maximum benefit.  That is why it is important for you to register in the form at right and send me a personal email (steve [at] steverosenbaum[dot]com) telling me which group you would like to participate in.

I had the honor this week of being interviewed by one of my favorite internet marketing experts, Ray Edwards.  Ray made this recording about me called “Regular Guy Makes Good In Internet Marketing” for his audience.

I was quite surprised how deep we got into my personal history.  Ray expertly drew out some very private and personal experiences, and illustrated how they were important to my successful transition from corporate America to starting my own business.

It’s a tough economy out there, and I know a lot of people are facing some very challenging times.  Listen to this interview and hear how I leveraged my experience to quickly gain new business helping other companies.

Thank you, Ray.
Download audio file (RayEdwards_SteveRosenbaum_FINAL.mp3)

Donna Fox is awesome! She is bright, She is fun, and best of all she knows her stuff!

Donna is in town tomorrow night, October 13 to speak at AIMEN. If you have plans… CHANGE THEM! Do whatever it takes to get downtown and be a part of this event.

P.S. Here’s a gift for you… A teleseminar that I did with Donna’s real estate investment group about how to sell real estate using Social Media.

The Big Bad Property Sale we talk about was introduced at this teleseminar for $297. To celebrate Donna’s visit I’m going to knock off $200! Don’t worry about the price on the sales letter, the shopping cart will only charge you $97 when you check out. Only for the next couple of days, and then the price goes right back to $297.

How to shoot video and use a video bitrate calculator

Here is a great video bitrate calculator to help you unravel the mystery of how to shoot a great-looking video.

Shooting quality video for the web requires you to know the proper settings, such as video bitrate and audio bitrate. Ultimately, you will be converting your media into a format to put it on your website. Understanding the conversion process is the key to setting things up correctly prior to recording, so that your software will give you the best quality files for uploading to the web.

If you are shooting video with a camera, some of the questions about dimensions are likely predeterminded for you. However, they will come into play when you edit and render (convert) your video for the web.

Here are some questions to consider prior to recording.

1. Will you be playing the video in a tradional 4:3 aspect ratio (like TV), or in a wider 16:9 ratios (like movie screens)? If you are recording from a camera, your camera is likely already set up to record in these dimensions.

2. Always try to record and encode in dimensions that are multiples of 16. Remember, the higher the resolution, the fatter the file and the more bandwidth required to play back. I always try to record in a higher resolution. Do my editing, and then use my software to reduce my dimensions when I convert it, prior to posting on the web. The table below outlines some good dimensions to use.

3. Will you be wanting people to view your video on their mobile phones? If so, 480×320 resolution is a good size that many phones will support.

Most sites that show videos convert them into the Flash Video (FLV) format for the web. Use the information above, and then visit Flash video bitrate calculator by Robert Reinhardt, prior to converting your video to determine your bit rate settings.

Follow these simple planning steps before shooting any video, and your audience will love the results!