Are they really your Rival?

Today is the day. Signing day for college football. High School athletes all over the US are walking a little taller today. It really doesn’t matter who you signed with right now, just as long as you signed. Many things will change for these players over the coming months, but today there is at least one change:

Rivals will be redefined.

You thought your rival was the high school across town, but not anymore. You thought Texas was your rival, but you didn’t sign with A&M or OU. You have to redefine your rival. Refocus your goals.

So I could go on forever talking about college football, but I’m a sales guy now. My rivalries are not televised, written about, or talked about like they once were. However, I still need to define my rivals, and college football paints a great picture for how I should do that.

Texas doesn’t look at Praire View A&M as a rival. They compete with USC, OU, and Florida for recruits. The 2 and 3 star recruits are largely ignored, and they fall to smaller schools. In the sae way, I need to define who my perfect client should be, and focus all my attention on them.

Another aspect of recruiting is the sharing of information. If you think a kid has big potnetial, but he’s ust not good enough for your school, you may pass the info along to a coach at a smaller school. Likewise, as I come into contact with companies who can’t afford my services, but want SEO, I should have a smaller company in mind to pass them to.

Not every company in your industry is your rival.

So who’s your true rival, and how do you partner with other companies in your industry?

Words of Wisdom – “If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.” – Confucius

Always Have An Exit Strategy

In this economy, wheather you are a business owner or employee, always have an exit strategy. Be prepared for sales to be slow. Be prepared to change careers. Be prepared to get laid off. Always learn. Always push yourself. Expect greatness, and always have an exit strategy. Hope you laugh as hard as I did – http://budurl.com/k3pr

Do you need real world experience to teach?

Perhaps I should ask it another way. Is teaching experience the best qualification for a teacher? I’m not talking Ms. Smith your 1st grade teach who smelled like your grandmother, and still remembers your name when you see her in the grocery store. I’m talking about higher levels of education. Undergraduate, Graduate, and perhaps junior/senior level high school teachers. people who might list their title as “Professor.” I recently had a discussion with a gentleman who had gobs (yes that is the technical terms for more than 30) of teaching experience on the college level. He even had the opportunity to teach at colleges in Europe. Am I supposed to believe that he can impart applicable knowledge to the next generation of business men and women? (he is currently teaching a course on advertising) I’m not going to ramble on my soap box, and I know there are probably plenty of exceptions. There are also plenty of people out there who are successful in their field but horrible teachers. Bottom line, people need practical, usable knowledge not just theory in order to be successful.

Words of Wisdom – ” An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

@joshdward “What is this?”

I don’t want to alarm anyone so early in this new year, especially in this unstable economy. However, the world just may be coming to an end. I just received a message from my Mom…via Twitter. I know, I know, I was as amazed as you are. My mother on Twitter, who would have thought?

Well, the world may not be ending, but failing to include Social Media in your marketing and sales plans could mean extinction your company. Take my example from above. Social Media has gone beyond a fad for the younger generation. In this forum, we’ll look at new ways to take advantage of these valuable tools each month.

The title I chose for this month may look a little familiar to you. There are probably millions of posts on Twitter that say about the same thing. Not everyone gets the concept at first. The best definition I have heard is micro-blogging. The idea is to say something interesting in 140 characters or less. When you post your first “tweet” it seems like you just wrote on some blank cave wall that may not be discovered for thousands of years. Well, the rabbit hole goes a little deeper than that. All your entries (yes, even the first one) are viewable by anyone else on Twitter. That means potentially reaching the over three million active Twitter users with every tweet. So, what’s the catch? The catch is that most people only read what comes in through their Twitter feed. Basically, your home page in Twitter. In order for someone to show up in your feed you must follow them. Following someone can be as impersonal as talking about the weather with the person behind you at the grocery store. It in no way obligates you to anything, and you can un-follow them at any time. The goal is to make your tweets engaging enough so people want to follow you. Then go out and follow people who interest you.

Is this really useful for more than wasting a little time after lunch? Absolutely. If you are not already on Twitter, sign up. That’s step one. If you are on twitter and still don’t get it, call or email me with any questions. I’m no Twitter guru, but I’ll point you in the right direction. Finally, once you’ve developed your following (this is the good part), use your influence to direct people to your website. That’s where tweets turn into profits.

Words of Wisdom – “Starve the sumo” – Anonymous

New Year or Just Another Year?

Until this past Sunday, I had never thought of it like that. It makes sense though. If I buy a car that is the same color make, model, year, and has about the same mileage of my existing car, it’s not really new. It’s just another car. What makes the car new are differences from what you have now. Red instead of brown, a Cadillac instead of a Kia, 50,ooo miles instead of 250,000. It could be said that change makes the year new. Not just writing 09 instead of 08, but really making a change. Not borrowing more than you have to spend, paying off unsecured debt, taking a family vacation, being constantly productive at work, and being kind to strangers. These types of changes in our lives will make the year new. You may ask, “But we all make “resolutions” isn’t that what you’re saying?” Not at all. Resolutions have become feather on the wind. We make them today and tomorrow they’re gone. If we wanted to truly resolve to do something, don’t wait, do it now. Midnight on Dec. 31 is not the only day we can make changes. A teacher once asked, “What would you do today if you knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow?” There were many replies, “Sell my belongings and tell as many people as possible about Him”, “Party all night and ask for forgiveness in the morning”, “Tell my Mom I love her”. Then the teacher pointed to a troubled soul in the back, this should be good everyone thought. “What would you do?”, the teacher asked. The soul looked around the room and said,”Exactly what I’m doing right now.” Change is hard. It’s exciting, life altering, effective, but change is hard. It requires a renewed commitment every morning. My challenge to you is this, pick one area of your life that, if changed, would make this a new and incredible year. Make it something specific like, “I will no longer eat 99 cent tacos from Jack In The Box.” Only more profound. Write that at the top of a piece of paper and underneath list 3 things you have to do in order to accomplish whatever you wrote at the top. Then tape that piece of paper next to your monitor and read it everyday. Then let me know how it works out.

Words of Wisdom – “I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.” – Babe Ruth

I have no idea how to order coffee

Initially I thought I was alone. The only person on the face of the earth that walks into starbucks and has no idea whats going on. It’s been better recently since I discovered the signature hot chocaolate. I prefer the term nuclear man fuel when referring to hot chocolate, but I digress. So I’m waiting for change today after ordering 8 double espresso’s this morning, don’t ask, and the woman next to turns and says, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” We laughed and I made the most witty comment ever, “I’m glad I’m not the only one.” Pretty good huh? Anyway, the point is we are out there and we are not alone. I might start a local CSA meeting in p’ville. That’s Confused in Starbucks Anonymous in case you weren’t aware. Ok, last post for the night, the 8 double espresso’s are finally starting to wear off.

Word of Wisdom – “You know what they say about guys with big feet? They wear big shoes.”

It’s too late to be funny or interesting – part 1

So I finally found time to setup the blog so I can do this on a regular basis. Its late, and I just finished watching SNL and Heroes on my DVR. Not mch else to say at this point, but I kept running out of space on twitter (@joshdward come check that out too). Thought briefly this afternoon about registering and selling twitter accounts. I should know better at this point, but I did the research long enough to talk myself out of it. So you may be asking yourself, why is this part 1? Well, I figure there will be at least one more time during the life of this blog where the title will apply. Someday you can tell your kids you where there for the first one. Well, off to bed, thanks for reading.

Word of Wisdom – “Don’t go chasing waterfalls,…” – TLC