Steve ~
As always there is always another 'Point of view' and yours is a SUPER ONE!
This forum notwithstanding, the advice I've given above, is advice I've followed myself. And as you stated in your post,
"I am only ONE person who has followed your postings to message boards over the years".
Networking is a priority in just about every situation when it comes to business. Being that a relationship must be born between a producer/provider and a consumer somehow. Operating forums are a way to do it. But possibly not the best way for someone who has not built a 'following'???
From what I've experienced, it is those who do not own/operate a forum who beneift the most. No bandwidth fees to pay. No moderating headaches to attend to. No need to worry about anything other than the need to promote themselves.
There are a small number of people who post altruistically though. They post to help other people in a given area of their own expertise, without ever asking for anything in return. Yourself being one of them.
For years I posted and never offered links to any promotions for which I was a benefactor of. And if it wasn't for the fact that at certain times, viewpoints and opinions were deleted heavy-handedly from a forum, this venue would have never been conceived.
I was content to NOT be involved with a forum of my own. But the traffic here is not overwhelming. The people who know about this forum are those who have been referred to it by one source or another. Heck Steve! I don't believe I even mention it in my eZine or from the CCM site itself! It's generally buried somewhere on the search engines.
Yes, forums do have a positive atmosphere when running smoothly and do provide a revenue source, a place for friends to meet and discuss important issues related to sales & marketing or even politcial views at times.
But I would only recommend a forum launch for someone who has built a clean solid reputation, and has been helpful to others on other forums for quite sometime.
I am very lucky - and fortunate - to have launched this forum a year ago, and to have people as yourself frequent it.
Thanks for the great post Steve.
And for those of you who have not visited Steve's site, you simply must add it to your favorites.
http://homebusiness-websites.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi
Success and Regards... Mike