Does your business run better with a shotgun? Or a laser? Lemme 'splain. When you want to hit something with a shotgun, you point it in a vague direction, and hope to hit something when you pull the trigger. With a laser, you have to be precise. Aiming at one specific point. Most small business owners [...]
When you’re defining your personal branding, it’s easy to get trapped into relying on only your own impressions of yourself. After all, who knows you better…than you? However, that’s exactly the problem. You know too much about yourself. There are so many various details that make up your personality. Trying to include all of them [...]
You strike up a conversation with a guy at a coffee shop. It’s a good chat. You’ve made an acquaintance. Congratulations! At this point in the new relationship, how comfortable are you with asking him to borrow his car? How about inviting yourself over to his house for dinner that evening? Awkward silence, right? If you’re [...]
There are nearly seven billion people in the world today. Why would anyone stop what they’re doing and talk to you? It's an important question for anyone, but if you’re involved in sales, self-marketing, or running your own business, you have to be interesting to new people all the time. New customers, new prospective customers, [...]
With my backpack and cell reception, I can functionally work from anywhere I please. The beach, the mountains, a Central American cafe, or out in the wilderness...wherever I have my backpack, cell reception, and time, I can work. I can write, or post, or call, or Skype, with anyone, anywhere in the world, from anywhere [...]
I don’t like to reinvent the wheel. I prefer to find out what successful people are doing, and model how they are doing it. Chris Brogan wrote an excellent blog post some time ago about how he prioritized his day. The man is a content output machine; he is one of the indisputable masters of [...]
You're setup with an email newsletter, but nobody is subscribing. Dangle the carrot, or I'll give you the stick. People are already dealing with information overload in their email inboxes. In order to overcome someone's reluctance to add to their inbox problem, you have to solve a different problem for them. Offer to solve a [...]
I’ve got my dream job. Ramit Sethi asked in this post about people who have successfully achieved their dream job, and my comment on the post got lots of responses. So I realized it’s time for me to describe it on my own blog. I design websites while living in Costa Rica. It [...]
As I'm sure you know, the economy stinks. Looking for a job in Portland (a digitally-savvy city) for a job in digital media (where there are lots of unemployed digital media enthusiasts) is like walking into a refugee camp and asking for a Denver omelette with a side of bacon. Other people are eating, sure, [...]
Today, I had the good fortune of working on two separate editing projects Writing -Editing: a nonfiction book proposal Video - Editing: a 30 minute multicamera interview and I learned a valuable insight. Editing is the process of removing the fluff that helps us tell our stories. This fluff, consisting of ums, false [...]