Pick a Direction - Page 11 of 28 - How do you expect to finish if you never start?Pick a Direction

When Rules Get in the Way of What’s Right #isupportpaulroof

Rules are not a bad thing. The larger an organization grows, the more rules it has to adopt. It’s a simple concept that anyone who has gone through the pains of starting a business will tell you.

But the difficult part happens when you find yourself enforcing your rules just because they are the rules and you forget what they stand for. Most times rules are made with the best of intentions. But there are exceptions and unforeseen circumstances in any business when rules are set in place.

When an organization sticks to those rules, they can be considered unwavering and disciplined. Something that has been all but lost in our culture. But sometimes, when an organization clings to their rules, they make mistakes. By sticking to their rules, they forget the meaning behind them and they are more focused on “reprimanding rule breakers” than seeing peoples’ good intentions for what they are: good intentions.

An Unfortunate Situation

Last week, a professor at CSU was let go because of a set of rules that were set in place to protect the school. They have a code of conduct that they expect their staff and student body to adhere to. They have an image as a Christian University that they must uphold and they believed that Professor Paul Roof broke that code of conduct.

I’m not going to go into the details of the story since it’s been out for a while, but you can read about it here.

Even if Paul Roof did know about his image being used, he was out in the community spreading the gospel. He, as a CSU advocate, obviously carried himself with the utmost pride and represented the University VERY well from the outcry on social media streams.

He wasn’t out drinking the beer with his likeness on it. And he wasn’t behaving against the code of conduct set forth by the University, but they saw it as such. They didn’t want to be associated with sinners and beer drinkers in the typical “holier than thou” mentality that too often encompasses the church.

While overlooking the student’s love for Professor Roof and his obvious character (missions work, community fundraising, and overall Christian influence in the community) they found fault in his actions. Following their rules has become more important than what the rules stand for.

The rules were set in place to keep their staff accountable and let them know that they were held to a higher standard than just any college professor. From everything I hear, Professor Roof held himself to those standards and then some.

The school wants to do God’s work and it seems to me that Professor Roof was doing just that. The church/school need more influencers in the community to spread their message. How about a guy whose face is on one of the most popular beverages in the city?

While we’re being Biblical…

CSU wants to uphold it’s reputation as a Christian University, and I totally understand that. It’s actually one of the reasons I love the school, they stand for something. But so many times we, as Christians, are given a bad rap for decisions exactly like this.

Even the people reporting this event, like Esquire, give a tongue-in-cheek account of how they see it and why they’re not surprised. We’ve played into every Christian stereotype by firing this good, Christian man!

An actual applicable scripture would be from Mark 2. Sorry Holy City Brewing, I’m gonna refer to you as sinners even though I love Chucktown Follicle Brown & the Brewery is an awesome spot:

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Professor Roof is doing exactly what Jesus did, he’s spending his time with the people he feels should hear the gospel. The folks at CSU already know about the Bible and what God has done for them, but Professor Roof is spending his time outside of the church aka CSU.

Anytime someone within an organization steps into new territory like this, they risk being seen as a traitor. CSU took that stance. I don’t agree with it, but that’s how they saw it.

Almost every Tweet, Instagram post, or Facebook status I’ve seen regarding this man says something about his character. How well he conducted himself, how much of an inspiration he was, how selfless he was. Yet, he’s no longer a representative of the institution.

In my opinion CSU has made a mistake, they will stick to their decision and they won’t rehire Roof. The sad part is how the University has been depicted (and rightfully so) after this event.

Full Disclosure

I love CSU. I received my undergrad in 2007 and my MBA in 2011. I played football for 5 years and was fortunate enough to play on the 2005 conference championship team and be elected a captain of the 2008 team. I have donated to the school from the moment I graduated and I try to spread the positive message about the school whenever I can.

That being said, I’m not surprised to hear about Professor Roof. I know how the school works and it’s unfortunate that this has been their decision. I just saddens me to see this opportunity to spread the gospel of CSU wasted. Imagine how cool it would be if the school owned the fact that Holy City Brewing wanted to use a professor’s photo on a flagship product.

How much more open would the young community be to hearing what CSU has to say? How many more people would want to know more about CSU? How would that change the intolerant stigma that surrounds the church/school?

I’ve seen this happen with many businesses. When rules get in the way of what’s right, organizations make choices they think are good in the short term, but prove damaging in the long haul. Be sure that the next time you are enforcing rules that you know why you’re enforcing them. One of the most dangerous things in this world is when people just follow the rules without questioning them.

I hope that everything works out for Professor Roof, and if you’d like to support him, you can go here to donate the charity Women with Wings, whom the Beard & Mustache Society supports.

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Do you think CSU made the right decision? Why or not not?

Have a great rest of the week!

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My 3 Step Process for Creating Quality Work

Woodworking is therapeutic to me. It gives me something on which to focus my creative energies. It lets me use my hands in a constructive way, something I do not do during my daily work.

One thing I love about woodworking is that it makes the carpenter slow down. I have found that the more I try to rush, the less perfect the outcome.

For example, the last time I got to work on my current project, I was frustrated with the materials at hand and I rushed because I was wasn’t getting as much done. The wood I had at my disposal wasn’t quite straight so I had to affix multiple pieces together like Frankenstein. Then my calculations were off because I didn’t take into account the girth of the lumber.

This of course made for a very shoddy TV Stand.

The Parallel

We’ve all had this problem with our work at some point or another. You do some sort of work, make a decision, or have a meeting and you don’t really feel like it was your best effort. But that’s all you can muster at the time.

Then you’re stuck with the decisions. Then you push forward and keep building on a lame idea. You eventually come out with a finished product that looks OK, but at the core you know it’s shaky.

That’s how I felt about the TV Stand. If I kept moving forward I could probably smooth it out and make it look pretty with gloss and some heavy-duty sanding. But it would be unstable and I would know that I skimped on the quality.

If I always “shipped” work with this mentality, just cover up the mistakes & don’t address them, I’d never produce a single piece of quality work.

I recognized this Wednesday so I spent an hour and half redoing my work from the prior week. Unscrewing, making new cuts, and scrapping crap work. It hurt to throw out a piece I spent 2 hours on, but the work wasn’t up to my standard.

Creating Quality Work

When I finally bit the bullet and re-crafted the piece, I was able to do it in half the time with cleaner cuts and make more progress than I had originally come up with. My mistakes allowed me to see a more effective process.

I never would have known this A.) had I not forced that work the first time and B.) if I would have covered up my original work & told myself there was no time to fix it.

Sometimes you have to bang your head against the wall and get out the bad ideas out. I was fortunate because I saw this ho-hum work in retrospect and decided to change it. But the danger shows up when you compromise with yourself & just let that bland work stand.

We often make decisions about our business like this. We forge ahead with the intention fixing things later. But then life happens. Once that issue is in our rear-view it’s out of sight & out of mind.

If you don’t have time to fix it now, what makes you think you’ll have time to fix it later?

And if it’s like many of the mistakes of my professional life, those cut corners will come back to haunt you. I have had a $900 chair fly out of a pick-up truck because it wasn’t strapped down properly, I’ve misplaced deposit slips & checks because I didn’t take time to create good filing systems, and worst of all had an employee fell and break a wrist because we were cheap and didn’t buy proper ladders (this last one wasn’t necessarily my fault, but I could have done more to help prevent it).

All 100% preventable had I gone back and taken the time to fix the issues instead of keep pushing forward.

Since those mistakes, I’ve learned to take a three-step process to create better work and make better decisions.

1.) Get Lost

If you want to produce something great, don’t wait till the last minute. Give yourself ample time to finish it, but be sure to set a deadline.

After the deadline is set, get lost in your work. Go down the rabbit hole, try things that sound crazy, and let the creative juices flow. You’ve got to give yourself time to explore.

2.) Review

I’ve written about measuring twice & cutting once, but this is a bit different. Many times we try to finish projects all at once. I’ve found that breaking up my work into segments allows me time to review.

With the blog, I rarely post anything the same day I start. With the TV Stand, I review my previous day’s work every time I come back to it. This ensures quality by giving you time to fix mistakes through the lens of a brand new day’s perspective.

3.) Give an objective look before shipping

If you work on a project for 12 hours straight you can get some great work done. But you can also be so focused that you forget to give your work an objective look.

Does the reader/user/presentee understand what you’re trying to do with the piece?

Sometimes you get so focused that you forget to step back. And when it ships, nobody understands it. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes before you give it the OK to ship.

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What process do you use to check and create work? Share them below in the comments or chat with me on Twitter (@mikemccann3)!

Have a great week!

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5 Ways to Improve Your Next Marketing Campaign

Marketing is a difficult concept to grasp for some people.

It is a very broad term that encompasses a lot of actions and decisions in an organization. It includes everything from your company attire to your mission statement. And of course it includes everything you’re already thinking about like the company Twitter account & the magazine ads you just finished purchasing.

But a specific marketing campaign is something that is planned out and executed in brief spurts. This may be a series of billboard ads or a TV spot, something that has a definitive start and finish date. It centers around a certain new idea or product you are promoting and the message has not been sent before.

Here is where many people get it wrong. These are 5 Ways to Improve Your Next Marketing Campaign to make sure it isn’t a waste of resources.

1.) Give Your Campaign Specificity

Most brands want to make ads like Nike. But 99.9% of brands don’t have the notoriety of Nike, they are like your local neighborhood dentist.

Nike can be mysterious & vague, it’s one of the most well known names on the planet. But the dentist down the street? They need to be more specific about what they do, where to find them, and why you should pick them over the other 2,000 dentists in your city.

An example of this came from a spinning studio ad I recently had the pleasure of critiquing. It was a ¼ sheet of paper and at the top is the logo for “Revolution” and at the bottom (cutoff) is “www.ride-rev.com.” Does the ad below tell you anything important?

I knew what the ad was for, but any Joe Schmo that picks up that piece of paper is going to throw it away out of confusion. There’s a big difference in creating intrigue versus just leaving out important pieces of information.

Be intentional about sharing your business’s specifics, otherwise people cannot equate who you are with what you do.

2.) Give Your Campaign a Call to Action

To this day, the most effective ads I’ve ever seen used are small, corrugated yard-signs we used while promoting new furniture stores. The signs were hand-written and plugged into the ground near stop signs.

They read 3 simple lines: New Queen Pillowtop // Mattress Set // $150 // 843 – 696- 5212

5 Ways to Improve Your Next Marketing Campaign

A similar dining set sign

There was no confusion, there was no sex appeal, there wasn’t a brand name, there wasn’t anything clever about it. There was just a simple call to action, a phone number.

This is obviously an extreme example. Many people want to brand their businesses with more than a phone number.

But think about how you can cut the fat in your next ad and make it more direct. Sure it won’t be as sexy or funny, but that’s not what marketing campaigns are about.

Marketing campaigns are about getting people to buy your product or service. If a marketer selling an idea or their medium of advertising uses the term “raising awareness” you should turn & run.

That is a fancy way of saying, “We’re going to put this in front of people, but don’t expect to get your money back on it because we don’t have a call to action that can be recorded.”

If you design an ad with a good call to action (sign up here, click this, call us, etc.) you will be able to measure your results & be able to answer this simple question: “Did this ad pay for itself or not?”

3.) Direct Your Campaign to the Correct People

I frequently go to WordPress meetups and I see people who are trying to market their web design services at these gatherings.

The other attendees are not their customers!

Their potential customers are the people who own small & medium sized businesses, not other people who sell SEO services & build websites for a living.

Ask yourself, “Who are my customers?”

If they are boat people, find ways to get their attention at marinas. If they are golfers, find ways to get their attention at the links and driving ranges. If they are bargain hunters, find ways to utilize Craigslist.

A major marketing mistake is saying everyone is a potential customer. Everyone is not your customer. Not even Wal-Mart can boast that.

Be realistic about who you are targeting and go find where they spend their time.

Don’t waste time trying to convert people who may be interested in your product/service. Focus your efforts on the people you know for a fact are already interested in your industry.

Find your audience.

4.) Tailor Your Message to Your Audience

Once you find your audience, it’s time to relate to them.

I use sports analogies because I know many of my readers have sports backgrounds. You have to speak the language of the locals to be accepted. If you can’t relate, they’ll never understand your message.

Looking again to the Revolution ad above, what message are they promoting by having sweaty models in their ad? Are you supposed to be young to come to these classes? Do you want to fill your classes with people who are skinny or do you want people who want to lose weight? If you’re appealing to the fitness community, what sort of workout is this?

Tailor your message to your audience to be more effective.

If you’re trying to reach small business owners, make sure to show how you can improve their business. If you’re trying to get people to sign up as a volunteer for your organization, make sure to show how your cause affects them. And if you’re trying to get people to come to your spinning class, tell them it’s a full-body spinning workout.

5.) Track Your Results

It blows my mind how many business owners don’t know where their sales comes from.

Did newspaper ads or social media produce more sales last month? Did the $2,000 spent on that radio spot pay for itself or not? How many sales came from the direct mailing campaign used?

These are important questions to ask ones self if you’re spending money on a marketing campaign. If you don’t know what is producing results, you could be making some serious mistakes.

If your billboard campaigns aren’t effective, stop paying for them. If you are getting great results from Adwords, dump more into the account & work on improving the conversion process.

The process of tracking your results starts before the campaign even begins. Know what ROI you need in order to make your money back. Do you need to sell 20 widgets or 25 widgets to pay for this? And if you do sell that many, will you run the ad again?

Knowing this before signing a contract will help make your next campaign a clear success or failure. And if you don’t know if it was a win or a loss, you might end up spending more money than you can afford.

When you have a clear goal in mind, you can tailor your ad with the specifics it needs to bring more customers your way.

With these 5 elements combined, your next marketing campaign is sure to have better results than previous attempts. Have a plan and be intentional about your next marketing campaign

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What are some examples of good & bad promotions you’ve seen? Share them below in the comments or chat with me on Twitter (@mikemccann3)!

Have a great rest of the week!

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The Ultimate Form of Content Marketing

What is content marketing?

To some its a buzz-word that has been floating around for some time now, right up there with “scaling” & “passive income.” It sounds more complicated than it really is, like a broad concept without a tangible definition.

To make it simpler, break it into two words and elaborate.

First word: content

Your content is information you produce (NOT what you sell) that is useful to your current & potential customers.

For a real estate company, this might be info on how to maximize your property value prior to selling. For a company like SOUTH, it could be how to Search Engine Optimize your website after we’ve made it for you. And for furniture stores, it can tips about interior decorating.

Content can be curated, rehashed, or paid for. In the sense of content marketing as a strategy, it’s typically free. Other times, people pay for you content, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Second word: marketing

Most people don’t actually know what marketing is.

Most people think marketing is buying a billboard, handing out t-shirts, or having flyers made to put up in Starbucks. Marketing your business is all of those things… but so much more.

Marketing is any message that your business conveys. This includes social platforms, this includes how sales people dress, everything down to the copy on your website. It’s ALL marketing.

One idea many of the sales people I used to train didn’t grasp was that their actions with current customers would affect potential customers they haven’t even met yet. This could come in the form of Google reviews, social media promotions, and general word of mouth around town.

For the ones that lasted a long time in a profitable store like the main one I managed in North Charleston, they could see the positive effects over the long-term. Customers would walk in & recognize me or ask for someone by name that hadn’t worked there for 3 years.

They made such an impression that the person remembered their furniture salesman’s name 3 years later! Keep in mind, furniture salespeople are about as trusted as used car salespeople. Talk about impact!

On the flip side, it was pretty easy to point out when someone mistreated a customer. They quickly decided Google should know about it. Marketing your business is any message that is conveyed, intentionally or not.

Nuts & Bolts of this idea

Your content is information (other than a product or service) that you give to the world. And your marketing includes any message you send.

Are you starting to bridge the gap here?

Content marketing is how you use your company’s Facebook page to entertain people with funny memes. Content marketing is what you put in your emails to customers. Content marketing is the helpful pamphlets you leave out around your store that educates customers.

Which means you need to be very selective about what messages you convey. The more helpful you are to your customers, the more effective your strategy.

Being able to relate to your customers is difficult. Most of us will be tempted to just put out dry white papers on a subject in your industry or just post an occasional message to our company Twitter account.

That’s why the best content marketers have fans, not just customers.

They entertain their customers
They educate their customers
They relate to their customers using their “language”
They find out what social platforms their customers use & publish on it
They engage with their customers (not just shout at them)
And when it’s time for customer service, they listen to their customers and respond accordingly, knowing their every move is now public.

Content Marketing as a Business Strategy

Does your website speak to your clients or is it just a template thrown together? Does the professionalism of your sales people convey the mission of your business? And if you’re promoting content, is it how you want to be seen if/when the news catches onto it?

The stores I used to manage got some press this week. The Charleston City Paper wasn’t thrilled with their ads, but the company seems to think they are working well. I don’t agree with the ads, but this is the message they wanted to convey and they did it intentionally to be edgy.

Since I know who works there, I can honestly say that the message conveyed in these ads matches the experience you’ll receive if you come into a store. Whether you like the ads or not, they have figured out the message(s) they want to convey through their ads.

When it comes to content marketing, it is the same idea. What message(s) do you want to convey? And how will you get them out? Atlantic Bedding chose to be edgy & use Facebook.

Check out this piece from last year on how to identify which form of social media best for your business if you’re stuck on which medium(s) to use.

Marketing your content can be done many ways. Through an email campaign, via a blog, through your sales people’s actions, or through the use of social media. And if you’re intentional about it, through all those mediums.

The Ultimate Form of Content Marketing

Since this topic has been swirling in my head for a while, I’ve had this idea of the the ultimate form of content marketing being how we live our lives.

For business owners, people will pick up on what you do and how you carry yourself. They’ll decide if they want to follow you or run away.

As a Christian man, people will look to see how I live my life to determine if what I say and do is worth listening to or in your case, reading.

In the case of my Mom, a personal trainer, she’s never had to advertise for clients. She trains upwards of 60 people each week. Not because she selflessly promotes herself on social media, or because she’s purchased billboards promoting her business. But because how she lives her life is the ultimate form of content marketing.

People are drawn to her because she is constantly helpful to people, whether it’s in the form of a kind word, encouragement, or just the fact that they see her working hard every day and she’s still in great shape. Her content sells her service.

She knows who she is and what message she wants to convey. She does it every day and she probably doesn’t even realize it.

Does your business know what it’s core message is? Once you’ve got that figured out, make it permeate throughout your organization and intentionally craft every message you can.

Be helpful, be generous, and be transparent with your audience and you’ll reap the rewards of content marketing.

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Do you utilize content marketing? How so & what benefits have you seen from it?

I’d love to hear from you below in the comments section or on Twitter (@mikemccann3)!

Have a great week!

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Leaving Your Comfort Zone… And Moving to China

I have a friend leaving for China tomorrow. I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Miles told me he was thinking about it back in January and I fully encouraged him to do so. In fact, I told him I wish I could accompany him, just to see what’s out there.

He, by his own admission, has been trying to find his way for a while now. He doesn’t even know how much I can relate to him.

The past 11 months of my life have been very up & down and many of my actions have been attempts find out what I love to do. I’ve tried writing, I’ve tried an online business, I’ve tried volunteering, I’ve tried coaching, and I’m just now settling into what I feel like I should be doing with SOUTH.

Miles is going for drastic change. He didn’t want to make small, incremental changes. He wants to jolt his system!

And he’s going to have an incredible journey of self-discovery along the way.

Many times we settle for the easy changes when we know we should take on the hard changes. Trying to learn Chinese could have been an easy, challenging alternative to mix things up. But he didn’t settle for that. He’s moving to China for an extended period of time.

I talk constantly about leaving one’s comfort zone. What Miles is doing fully embodies that idea.

He knows no one. He doesn’t speak Mandarin. He has never been to China. And he is going to stick out like a sore thumb being a 6’4 white guy with wavy brown hair.

For all those reasons and more, I am very proud of him for taking this leap of faith. He’s going into the unknown and ready to see what sort of self-discovery is waiting for him.

Good luck Miles, I can’t wait to hear what this experience is like for you!

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What have you done lately to get out of your comfort zone?

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Chat with Miles on Twitter (@kilometers9) and help him stay connected to America while he’s on this awesome journey!

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How to Network like a Pro

Are networking events actually worth attending?

I’ve always been curious of what people get from these gatherings. Some people swear by them and others despise them.

I had an epiphany last week during an event that may seem very obvious. There are certain ‘Connector’ personality types that benefit from these gatherings more than most of us.

The epiphany wasn’t that these events were beneficial to some people and not others. It was that I needed to find some Connectors if I wanted to make my attendance pay off.

Who are the Connectors?

They are the professional networkers.

They are the movers & shakers at these events. They can put me in connection with potential clients and they can introduce me to people that share a common interest with me. They know who I should talk to even if they don’t know me.

They have their own permanent badges with their full name, title, and company that they proudly display. They know almost everyone at the events and unlike most of us, they look very relaxed in these situations.

These are all more than likely some type of Connector.

In The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell describes Connectors as people that know LOTS of people, they cultivate acquaintances (not necessarily deep friendships), because they occupy multiple “worlds” they know a variety of individuals, and they seem to collect, “people the same way others collect stamps.”

Tom Rath & the StrengthsFinder 2.0 series explains that the Connectedness trait can be shown as an ability to see yourself as, “a bridge builder for people of different cultures.”

They intentionally seek out new relationships, even if they’re not incredibly deep ones. They are always meeting new people and they are always in front of others trying to connect the dots.

The Connectors are the people who can connect you to 90% of the people in the room through one handshake, instead of having to shake everyone’s hand individually. The best professional networkers seem to have these connecting qualities.

How are Champions important for my business?

We don’t all have time to attend 3 luncheons each week. And most business owners are reading this shaking their heads saying, “In no way am I a connector, I actually hate most people.”

I get that, I used to be the same way when I worked in retail. It’s hard to go to events like this if you don’t see value in it.

That’s why you should find someone else to do it for you. Someone that is much better at connecting than you are. It’s like sending in a spy with all sorts of information to leak it out into the community.

Can you identify a customer that is well connected in your community? Or maybe an entry level employee that seems to know an abnormal amount of people? What about a fellow family or church member that has extra time and seems to always make new friends?

If any of these people can network more easily than you and they seem to be better connected, consider asking them to go in your place to the next networking event you get an invite to.

If word of mouth is important to your business, you need champions. The best champions are professional networkers.

They may not walk around telling everyone who you are right away with a bull horn. But when the time is right and the conversation has been primed, they will plug you like you deserve.

A 3rd party promotion can be way more beneficial than one coming from a company representative, especially an owner. A 3rd party promotion comes across off as more sincere since the promoter is not technically getting paid to do the promoting.

And when they promote, people listen.

Connecting Topics

Imagine if that current employee you sent to a networking event wore a neon green t-shirt with your logo on the front right next to their pre-made badge. Pretty cool, eh?

That actually sounds ridiculous, I know. I’m not suggesting you buy neon green t-shirts and hand them out to advocates of your brand. What I am suggesting is that you offer those Connectors something to talk about for you.

When you send a Connector into an event as your company’s Champion, they need to have material to talk about. New initiatives that are happening, upcoming projects, or positive things that you’re doing in the community.

This may sound risky to you, or maybe even sound like a waste of time. But if you have high dollar customers, as my new company SOUTH does, the investment made in one person over lunch is easily paid off when they send one customer your way.

If you have lower priced commodity products, like mass produced furniture, everyone is always on the lookout for where to get a good deal. The more people you touch, the better your business will grow.

Identify Connectors in and around your business, recruit them to attend some of these events for you, and give them topics to talk about. Speaking of tactics…

Ideas for Encouraging your Champions

Here are some ways to get individuals to talk about your brand for you.

Make them VIP
- One time I was ‘awarded’ a Wild Wings VIP card since I frequented the establishment weekly. It was usually to entertain my sales guys or customers and I paid 99% of the time with personal or company funds. They gave me a VIP card that offered me discounts for spending X dollars and I loved it. I told everyone I knew, and it made me come back again and again just to show my card off. I helped spread their business through word of mouth.
Bribe them
- Yes, that’s a strong word. But it’s a simple concept, give them something for free. It doesn’t have to be huge, it just has to be sincere and transparent. Give them something such as a free upgrade, or a free sample of your product. You want them to have a reason to talk about you in a good light.
Ask for the ‘sale’
- If you don’t share your intentions, these connectors will never know why they are being treated like royalty. You have to explain that you’re working on a new word of mouth program, that you are looking to show value to the “people of influence” in the community. You’ve pinpointed them as a person of influence and that you would like them to be an advocate of your brand just for being them.
Don’t ask for specifics
- Inquiring how many cards they give out during a typical networking event is way off the mark. Just tell them that you think they are influential and that you would like to make in impression on them since they hold high standing in the community. Some people will be downright flattered and that alone will make them want to talk about you.
Don’t waste your time on the wrong people
- Celebrities don’t necessarily equal connectors. You want to find the people who make real connections. If you’ve been to a few of these events, you can easily spot them. They are the ones that you see at multiple venues. They’re the ones who seem to know half the people in the room, and not necessarily because they are speaking.
Cultivate the relationship
- Take them out for coffee, invite them over for dinner, or ask them go to the beach with you. It doesn’t always have to be about your business, you just need to get them to know you & your brand.

Once you’ve built relationships with the right people, they will do the networking for you. They’ll talk about you at work, on vacations, and at these networking events.

The more of these Connectors you have promoting you, the more business can be sent your way.

If you have enough people out there championing your brand, you don’t have to try and attend every networking event in town. You already have brand advocates out there promoting for you. Which means you can focus on your business and go to events sparingly.

As Gladwell explains in The Tipping Point, word of mouth epidemics are spread only after a Connector gets a hold of an idea. Identify the Connectors and spread your own word of mouth epidemic. That’s how to network like a pro.

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How else can we effectively spread out business through word of mouth?

I look forward to hearing from you below or on Twitter (@mikemccann3), have a great rest of the week!

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Why Going All Out is a More Effective Strategy than Saving Some for Later

Going all out scares people. What do you do once you have nothing left?

There’s no turning back. If you stop saving some for later, you have to be fully committed to something. Commitment is rare these days, which is why a lot of people don’t push themselves to empty.

Hipsterism embodies the “I’m too cool to commit” attitude. But here’s a few scenarios in which driving to E proves to be a very effective strategy.
going all out

Sports Application

A while back I talked about what it’s like to leave it all on the field. I talked about my athletic days and how there are situations when “selling out” will get you the results you want.

This, of course, can be quite uncomfortable. Nothing about pushing yourself to the your physical limits lets you stay within your comfort zone – which is one reason I’m so attracted to the topic and to sports in general.

When you run till your legs are wobbly, it’s not comfortable. When you tackle a man twice your size, it’s not comfortable. When you put everything into a project at work and exhaust yourself, it’s not comfortable.

Going all out forces you to dig deeper and push yourself beyond your current “limits.” These can be real limitations, but they are usually fabricated in our minds. You are capable of much more than you realize. Most people don’t test those limits so they don’t actually know what they’re capable of.

Sales Application

One of my favorite stories from my previous life in furniture was when we sold out of nearly everything we had.

It was in the early days and our space was only about 3,000 sq ft. There was only 4 or 5 of us working (in the entire company which is now comprised of around 100 people) between the Charleston & Myrtle Beach stores.

My boss, Todd, and I cleaned out our entire showroom/warehouse on a Saturday afternoon. Just the two of us. We had our best day ever in sales, we moved old stuff that was collecting dust, we had people pick up layaways, and we turned some major profits on that day. All we had left was a couple random Clemson and South Carolina print bunkie mattresses!

There used to be a picture floating around of me sweeping the dust off the floor of an empty warehouse after all the deliveries for the day had gone out. That’s the kind of picture that gets hung in the office and stories get told about for years.

We SOLD OUT hard that day and it was one of the best feelings ever. We went home early and we took Sunday off because we didn’t have anything to sell! We had a shipment arrive on Monday and we were ready to get after it so we could do it again.

Going all out is hard to do. But when you look back at an empty warehouse, you see how great of an accomplishment you’ve just made. Every retailers dream is to have an empty warehouse, an empty warehouse usually means a full bank account.

But that can’t happen if you don’t push your store, your marketing, your sales process, and your business to the brink.

Creative Application

Speaking creatively, there are so many reasons to go all out. As I’ve talked about many times, you have to get out of your comfort zone to really produce something worth creating.

pick a direction blog

What’s the best way to get out of your comfort zone? Get rid of all your ideas and start fresh. Go all out, and create all the work you’ve got rattling around inside of you.

What you’ll have left will be fresh, not stale like a lot of your ideas you’ve thought about but never explored. And you’ll have to find new ways of expressing them since your old ideas are gone. You’ve got a clean pallet to work with once you’ve gone all out.

There is nothing to hold you back once you start fresh. No old ideas to hang on to. No pre-conceived notions of how to do something. And best of all, no expectations.

When you stop trying to save some for later, your best work comes when you least expect it. Some of my best writing has come after I drained myself on something I thought was going to be a hit.

Whomp Whomp…. The ones I expected to be hits, the ones that I went all out on, turned out to be duds. But what came next just flowed onto the page and people resonated with them so much so that they went viral on social media. I thought when I drained myself, I would produce great work.

But creativity is different. We have to go all out to tap into that next layer of artistic ability. So to do great work, go all out!

Viral Post 1: Why Counterbalancing Improves our Effectiveness
Viral Post 2: 9 Hard Lessons I Learned About Freelancing

This section can be summed up from a monologue spoken in a Daft Punk song released about a year ago:

Once you free you mind about the concept of harmony and of music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So nobody told me what to do and so there was no preconception of what to do.
– Giovanni Giorgio

I think one of the best ways to free your mind is to empty it out. Get it all out, sell out, and then start fresh to do your best work.

Recharging

This whole, “go all out” thing doesn’t pan out for workaholics. I used to be one, and I tried it. In retrospect I was not nearly as effective at my job as I could have been during this period.

You can’t go all out all the time. It leads to burnout, forms of abuse, and a downright miserable demeanor. Just like technology, we need to recharge.

For some this is quiet time with a book or meditation. For others it’s a nice dinner with friends (not typically the ones from work). And for some it’s doing new and challenging things that distract you from your work.

Some of the most important breakthroughs have come to people while they were recharging. Einstein came up with the theory of relativity while riding his bike. Isaac Newton discovered gravity while he was resting near an apple tree.

When you let your mind take a break, you allow it to put those puzzle pieces together in a way you didn’t even know would work.

Going All Out

Recharging clears the mind and allows the body to relax. Runners take a rest after they complete a race.

Rich Roll, in his book Finding Ultra, talks about how he is able to get stronger/faster in his down time. When his body is recovering from 40+ mile training runs (talk about pushing yourself to empty). He goes on to explain that the training he does breaks down the body. The rest he takes is when his body recovers and grows.

So where do you need to go all out?

Find that area of your life, whether it’s your work, your art, or your body, and stop saving some for later. It’s time to start going all out and tapping into your real potential.

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What are you thoughts about going all out?

I look forward to hearing from you below or on Twitter (@mikemccann3), have a great rest of the week!

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What does it take to be great?

Seth Godin is a person of great influence on me. He has written a dozen best-selling books, is known as a thought leader in today’s marketplace, and he blogs every single day.

One of Seth’s “platforms” (I hate that word) is that showing up is underrated. I have heard him say that multiple times in blog posts, podcasts, and in books. Seth has been writing his on his blog for over 10 years. Every day.

Think about that consistency and that commitment for a minute: 10 Years. What have you done consistently for the past 10 years?

He attributes part of his success to his unwavering commitment to showing up every day. I cannot argue with him. I found it extremely difficult to write 100 blog posts over the course of 4 months. But I didn’t just show up and voila I was able to write. I had to work hard to get those words out.

Although I’m far from great, I have some ideas on how we achieve greatness over the long-term inspired by Mr. Godin.

Showing Up vs. Greatness

In football there were lots of guys who could walk onto the field without knowing the gameplan. They would make a few great plays that would impact the game and they would be celebrated. Nice job boys!

But they weren’t consistent plays. They were flashes of sporadic lighting that weren’t replicable. And when one of those players was asked how they did it, their answer usually stemmed back to a guess of some sort. Organized sports is rarely about guessing what to do.

100% of the guys that produced those flashes of greatness didn’t play for more than a year or so. They would fail out, lose interest, or get kicked off the team for not showing up to a workout or a meeting. They couldn’t be there consistently in any way, much less on the field when it counted. When we needed them.

But each of them got a shot to start ahead of the guy who just showed up every day. The guy who was there every day earned some respect and a chance to compete, but only if he showed up AND worked his tail off. Even that didn’t earn him the right to start.

There are people who can sporadically show up and produce greatness. But it’s not consistent. Nor is it replicable. And there is a terrible amount of luck involved.

Showing Up is Crucial

When we show up every day we give ourselves the opportunity for greatness. We aren’t guaranteed a thing, but it gives us the opportunity to be great.

I have a much better chance of having a blog post go viral if I write 500 of them as opposed to the guy who writes 1. I can’t hit a hole-in-one if I’m not on the golf course. And I can’t learn to surf if I’m not in the water.

Showing up is one of the first stages of commitment. The first stage is to set a goal. I set a goal to write every day for 30 days when I first started the blog. I knew that I had to get in the routine of showing up if I ever wanted to write a book.

Now on my 140th blog post, that goal setting has paid off. But the daily commitment is as hard as ever!

Showing up on Day 1 is hard. And it gets a little easier on Day 2. But Day 45? Your commitment is put to the test. Day 100? It’s still tough to dedicate time to something every day. So I cannot imagine what someone like Seth, whose blog posts range upwards of 4,000, feels when he sits down every day.

I’m all for sharpening the ax, we all need breaks. But I’m referring to the times when we haven’t allowed ourselves the time away. For example, I committed to blogging every weekday. I allowed myself the weekends to pull away after that initial 30 day sprint. But during the week I write every single morning whether I get something posted or not.

But is that enough?

There are very few places that reward hard work more than athletic competitions.

Back on that football field, the guys that showed up every day weren’t just named the starters because they were on time and were warm bodies. The best guys that consistently showed up and got better were awarded a majority of the playing time.

Showing up is only step one. Lots of guys make it through training camp and get to practice every day. But the best show up and get better every day.

Showing up doesn’t mean you are owed anything. Showing up just gives you the opportunity to write, to get better, to learn, or to grow.

But you have to be willing to work at it when you get there. People always say the first step is the hardest, and I agree. But that 140th step is almost as hard as the first. .

Showing up and producing doesn’t get easier like most things we do with repetition. Think about the differences in driving to work 100 times versus creating 100 pieces of art. Big gap, eh?

Which is why Seth says showing up is so underrated. We’re used to having things get easier the more we do them. But that difficult commitment is why we look at people with consistency and call them great.

A Greatness Hack

An amazing thing happens once we’re in our chairs or on the practice field. The hardest part of the commitment is over.

People often say that the hardest step in any journey is the first one. Well once you have made that first step, it’s harder to turn back. You are here, you might as well put in the work!

When you are faced with writing, it’s harder to turn away from a blank page with a pen in hand than if you never sat down. And it’s harder to walk off the practice field once you’re dressed than it is if you never got to the locker room.

Showing up does not equal automatic work. It just means you’re building momentum.

What does it take to be great?

So we can’t just show up blank stare like a bump on a log.

The most celebrated people are not the ones that just show up and wait for things to happen. Nor are they the ones that only bring their A-games when they feel like it.

The ones that make a difference, the Linchpins, are the ones that produce lighting by trying to make it happen ever day.

They show up and work hard, day in-and day-out. They produce the lightning, but not because they are lucky. They produce it because they were there to capture it when it strikes.

You are more likely to come up with a great idea if you produce 10,000 “regular” ideas rather than just 1 of them right? So show up every day and bring your best.

Greatness is not some mystical formula. It’s a process. And that process starts with showing up every day.

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What are you thoughts on achieving greatness?

I look forward to hearing from you below or on Twitter (@mikemccann3), have a great day!

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