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December 6, 2011 By 52 Comments

No, you don’t need a stupid social media policy

No, you don’t need a stupid social media policy

Social media in the workplace is (still) a popular topic of discussion. While those of us living in our marketing/tech bubbles see social media as just everyday communication, there are still many large organizations that are struggling to figure out how to use it, how to leverage it for business advantages, and how to minimize risk.

Based on what I’ve observed, there is a popular notion related to social media floating around among consultants that really bugs me. When discussing social media in the workplace and in business communication, the battle cry seems to be “you need a social media policy!”

No, you don’t.

A social media policy sounds like a good idea on paper but let’s look at the message it sends. First of all, let’s agree that social media is not some weird, magical new thing that requires it’s own set of rules. It’s not. Social media is communication. Technology has changed in ways that allows communication to become more transparent, scalable, and flexible. However, at it’s core it’s still just communication.

Next, let’s agree that our employees are not stupid. As business owners and managers, I’m going to assume that we want to hire smart people that know what they are doing.

Finally, let’s agree to trust our employees. Again, I’m going to take another leap of faith and assume that we want to hire people that we trust. Sound fair?

If all this is true, then why do we feel the need to regulate and hamstring what our employees do on social media?

I, for one, love it when my team members show their personalities on Twitter, write insightful and opinionated blogs, and talk to our clients on Facebook. I trust my employees. I hire smart people. I enjoy what they bring to our team and encourage them to be visible and active online.

“But what about regulations and stuff, Reynolds! Your company is all fluffy marketing and shiny things but I have to worry about compliance and blah blah blah!”

Ok, so what? Is this a social media problem? No. This is a company culture issue. If you hire smart people with common sense and train them adequately to understand what their outcomes are, do you really need a social media policy? Or would you rather set them free to be creative and authentic?

And if you don’t trust your employees, then why are they working for you?

Please stop over-regulating, over-policing, and over-policy-izing your employees. If you trust them, you may just be pleasantly surprised.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
August 16, 2011 By 5 Comments

17 productivity hacks and tools that help me accomplish more

17 productivity hacks and tools that help me accomplish more

I’m a pretty busy guy. I own a web solutions firm. I run a social media and technology consulting practice. I work for a workplace productivity training company. I speak at events around the country. I volunteer on non-profit boards and committees. I write books. I travel (a lot). I serve in my church. I blog. I play the cello in a chamber music ensemble. I build e-learning communities. I also try to fit in lots of tennis and sushi, as well. My friends sometimes ask me how I get so much stuff done. Am I an obsessive workaholic? Well, yes. However, I also make use of a number of productivity hacks and tools in my life and business that help me accomplish more in less time.

Each hack on its own my not be much, but when you add up the time saved and the friction removed with each item, it quickly adds up. Here are my favorite productivity hacks and tools that help me get more done.

1. Use reQall to capture ideas. Anyone who has read “Getting Things Done” by David Allen (affiliate link) is familiar with the idea of ubiquitous capture. This is the idea that if you are equipped to record ideas and action items at all times, then you keep your brain clear for creative focus while at the same time ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. I love reQall because it lets me simply speak notes into my iPhone which are then transcribed and emailed to me for later processing.

2. Use Tungle to schedule meetings. I cannot find the words to explain how much I heart Tungle. How much time is typically wasted playing phone tag or sending emails back and forth doing the “when are you free” dance? Tungle solves all that by allowing me to book meetings in 30 seconds by sending out a link that allows others to see my open times, suggest time slots, and automatically add meetings to my calendar. I think anyone who doesn’t use Tungle is stark raving mad.

3. Use TextExpander to save typing. How often do we type the same blocks of text over and over? Meeting details, locations, addresses, messages, etc. TextExpander allows me to save commonly used blocks of text into an archive and then magically pop them into data fields with a simple shortcut. For example, my email signature becomes “ssig”, my name becomes “nname”, and my Tungle link becomes “ccal”. It saves tons of time and helps me maintain my workflow without copying and pasting things. TextExpander is for Mac only but I’m sure there is some Windows alternative out there but I wouldn’t know about that.

4. Use the same GoToMeeting details for all my meetings. Not everyone knows this but you can set up a recurring meeting in GoToMeeting and simply re-use that meeting over and over. You just schedule a meeting, check the box that says “Recurring meeting” and poof! Use the same meeting details over and over. You never have to set up another meeting again. The bonus hack with this is that I have a TextExpander shortcut set up so that when I type “ggoto” it drops in the meeting URL and other details into emails or calendar invites so I can effortlessly schedule meetings and send GoToMeeting info in a matter of seconds.

5. Follow Inbox Zero. Merlin Mann made Inbox Zero popular during a talk he gave at Google. I have since adopted and tuned the system to help me process email faster and be more productive as I manage it. It takes discipline but when I follow the system, it helps me get more done.

6. Keep up with online articles using Instapaper. I subscribe to a lot of blogs and see lots of information go across my radar on a daily basis. I love this because it keeps me informed and helps me stay in a state of continuous learning. However, if I read everything in real time I would get nothing done because I would be reading blogs and articles all day. Instead, I save interesting articles to Instapaper and then catch up with them on my iPad when I have more focused reading time, such as when I’m on a plane or winding down at night. This helps me avoid missing useful educational material while not letting the input slow me down.

7. Migrate to a Kindle. I love to read but transporting a bunch books when traveling is cumbersome. Once I went Kindle, I never looked back. For those who use the common retort “but I like the feel of a real book” I say: give the Kindle a try. Trust me. It is awesome. I love being able to carry an entire book collection with me on a tiny device that gives me the ability to choose what I want to read any time and switch books with the click of a button. And it looks and reads like real paper. The Kindle is truly a revolutionary device. Oh, and don’t waste your time on the alternatives like the Nook, etc. Go Kindle. Trust me. Since moving to Kindle, I find myself finishing more books than I ever did before.

8. Use a hands-free cellphone device. Talking on the phone can take up a good portion of my day. This includes sales calls, client meeting, returning voice mails, etc. By keeping a hand-free device handy, I can turn driving time into productive meeting time. Yes, I realize that even with a hand-free device there is still an element of distraction while talking and driving so please don’t yell at me for suggesting this. Just be careful. It’s amazing how many phone calls I can get through as I drive from one destination to another with a bluetooth headset. It’s also helpful as I walk around the office or do other non-intensive tasks. I can also get a lot of laundry folded while returning phone calls! My favorite is the Plantronics Voyager Pro+. It looks dorky but has excellent sound quality.

9. Leave actionable voicemails. How often do we play phone tag with someone by leaving voice mails that say “call me” with no additional details? Sometimes you really do need to discuss something in real time, such as sensitive or emotionally-charged issues. However, much of the time we spend too much time playing phone tag unnecessarily when we could be moving action items along by leaving better voice mails. When I leave a voice mail, I usually leave very specific details that give the other person information on exactly what needs to be done. Sometimes I can leave a message that simply answers the question clearly and specifically. Other times I leave details on where the information can be found online. I will sometimes even briefly offer multiple options/answers for different scenarios. The point is, I leave details that are useful to the other person, rather than just saying “call me back.”

10. Convert “coffee meetings” to video conferences. If you do a lot of networking like I do, you probably get asked to “get together for coffee” quite a bit. While there is nothing wrong with having coffee (or in my case, a smoothie) with people, a lot of the time these are simply exploratory meetings that may or may not be a good use of your time. If I said yes to every request to get together for coffee, I would be spending all my time driving to Starbucks. So if someone asks me to have coffee as a “get to know you” meeting, I suggest that we do a short video conference (or phone call) instead. This helps keep the meeting short and more actionable. There is something about meeting at a coffee shop that seems to make meetings last longer and lack focus but a video conference or phone call tends to be a medium more conducive to a clear agenda and an actionable conversation. With so many options for video conferencing, like Skype, GoToMeeting, and Google+, there is really no excuse to avoid it. If both parties don’t have a webcam, do a phone call instead.

11. Use Highrise for a CRM. Just about all organization need a good CRM to keep track of contacts and opportunities. Highrise is the best CRM I’ve found for those needing something simple and easily accessible. The thing about Highrise that makes me productive is the fact that it removes friction from the process. I’ve used CRMs in the past that required me to log in, paste in notes, click a bunch of buttons, and generally jump though hoops to get things done. This either caused me to waste time in the application, or not use it all all, which is even worse. Highrise makes tracking communication almost effortless. I can Bcc my Highrise dropbox to record correspondance, I can set up opportunities in a couple of clicks, and I can set up tasks and reminders in seconds. Additionally, I can record voice notes using the iPhone app and append them to contacts while on the go. This saves me even more time.

12. Manage my social networks with HootSuite. I have profiles on all the major social networks and I also manage accounts for a few other organizations. HootSuite lets me manage them all in one place. It also lets me schedule certain posts using an editorial calendar which lets me focus my time and accomplish more by batching my distribution and block scheduling when I work on my social marketing.

13. Store receipts in the cloud with Shoeboxed. I used to hang on to business receipts and then toss them all into a big file cabinet periodically. Then, if I ever needed them again it would be a nightmare since I had no real filing system. It was also annoying to hang on to all that paper while traveling. Now, I simply scan business receipts using the Shoeboxed app on my iPhone, discard the paper, and all my receipts are now stored in a nice, organized, searchable database online. This saves time and effort, not to mention storage space. Shoeboxed saves me even more time when I want to create an expense report. I just select the receipts I want to include and it generates an accountant-friendly expense report in seconds.

14. Manage personal finances using Mint. I think Mint is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s a personal finance app that lets you bring all your accounts into one dashboard, manage budgets, and track spending with a few clicks. It eliminates the need for budget spreadsheets, recording transactions, and doing math (gasp!) to get an analysis of your finances. Mint keeps it all in one place and even has a mobile app for when you’re on the go. Mint saves me incredible amounts of time on personal finances.

15. Use OpenTable to schedule dinner appointments. Ok, so this is not always a problem but I do sometimes spend more time than I want to when I’m trying to set up a dinner appointment and I go through the routine of choosing restaurant options, calling around to see who has reservations available, and getting it booked. Rather than go though that routine, I pull up the OpenTable app on my iPhone, let it locate me and suggest restaurants near me, and then choose from available reservation times to book my dinner appointment. It all gets done in a matter of seconds. OpenTable does save a little bit of time but for me it’s more about eliminating friction from the process.

16. Keep a todo list in Backpack. Like Highrise, Backpack is a 37 Signals product and it’s slick. It’s a super-simple todo list, note taking app, and simple project storage system. I organize my todo lists by context (calls, blogs, errands, etc.) and then use the iPhone app to track items throughout the day. Backpack gives me a one-stop repository for all my todo lists and ensures that nothing falls through the cracks.

17. Shop for household supplies with Alice. I hate going to the store. For this reason, I love Alice. When I’m about to run out of an item like paper towels, deodorant, or toothpaste, I simply scan the product barcode with the Alice app on my iPhone to add it to my shopping cart. Then, once I reach a critical mass of items, I place the order with a few clicks and a big blue box containing my items appears on my doorstep a few days later. It’s like magic! I cannot even begin to add up how much time I’ve saved by eliminating shopping trips since using Alice.

These are some of the productivity hacks and tools that help me get more done in the limited time I have. Do you have any favorite techniques that work well for you? Please share below.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Course correcting as a professional speaker

Course correcting as a professional speaker

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at Blog Indiana. If you’re not familiar with it, Blog Indiana is a popular blogging and social media conference in Indianapolis and is very well attended and includes some great content.

So I gave a presentation called “Internet Marketing in 90 Minutes a Week” during the afternoon slot. Now normally, I am pretty confident in my speaking. I usually get great feedback, I spend hours and hours tweaking my content to be very high value, and I genuinely love connecting with the audience.

However, at Blog Indiana I did not have an outstanding experience. It started off with some technical glitches that involved me having to use a handheld microphone instead of a lapel mic (I hate handheld mics!) so that sort of bummed me out. However, the real problem was how I was targeting my presentation. Because my title was catchy, I filled the room and they had to open up the side wall in order to accomodate everyone who attended. This was awesome and as a speaker I love to see this. However, as I was giving my presentation, I started to realize that I had made a mistake.

My presentation was not about Internet marketing, it was about content marketing – which is much more specific. In my effort to create a catchy, demand-creating title, I had boxed myself into a corner of having to deliver something sensational to a crowd that included some pretty savvy marketers. To be fair, their were some beginners in the crowd, as well, who learned a lot but a lot of the attendees were already doing a many of things I was covering and were probably not all that impressed.

As I continued the presentation, I got more and more upset with myself for getting the title out of sync with the content and I felt terrible for incorrectly setting expectations. My presentation was a great overview of how to be productive with a content marketing plan but I could tell that a lot of the attendees were there to be wowed by my supposed ability to boil all of Internet marketing down to 90 minutes.

The presentation went ok and didn’t bomb or anything and I even got some decent feedback afterward, but since I’m a perfectionist I was pretty bummed. I beat myself up over it and got really upset.

I was even more upset because I was giving the same presentation the next day as a webinar. How could I repeat the same mistake? Then I realized that I didn’t have to. Two hours before the webinar, I changed the title, tweaked a few slides to get even more specific, and then presented “Content Marketing in 90 Minutes a Week.” Guess what? It went great. I could tell that my message was flowing logically, my content was accurate and relevant, and I got a ton of great questions and lots of positive feedback afterward.

What did I learn? Well, one thing I learned was that I need to be careful when creating presentation titles. I tend to come up with titles first and then create the presentation afterward which can sometimes backfire. More importantly, however, I learned that it’s ok to fail and then course correct. Not every presentation is going to be a 100% knockout. Sometimes I will make a mistake and deliver 73%. As long as I understand what went wrong and can course correct, it makes me a better speaker.

Was it a little awkward to change my title two hours before the presentation? Sure, a little. But all I had to do was explain very honestly why I did it at the beginning of the presentation and then it was on to delivery. It wasn’t awkward because I believed in my message again.

Has anyone else had experiences like this as a speaker? I would love to hear your stories in the comments below.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Marketing, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
July 3, 2011 By 1 Comment

What your business can learn from the Mormon Church

For those who may not be aware, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other less formal labels for this denomination include “LDS” and “Mormon.” My faith is a source of great happiness in my life and I am always happy to answer questions about it. However, this post is not about religion, so I would ask that if you have any religious questions about the LDS faith, please contact me directly and I will be happy to discuss.

The LDS Church is one of the largest religions in the world. It has over 14 million members and is the second-fastest growing church in the U.S., according to the National Council of Churches. Other statistics on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be found in the LDS Newsroom.

All spiritual debates aside, it’s easy to see that the LDS Church is doing something right. What are the Mormons doing that has lead to such dramatic and steady growth and how can it apply to your business?

Strong systems

The Mormon church is extremely systematic about everything from building churches and temples to teaching sunday school. If you go to a Mormon church anywhere in the world, you will find that they all follow the same meeting agendas, the same processes, and even teach the same lessons. If you attend a church meeting one Sunday in Indianapolis and then attend a meeting the following Sunday in California, it will be very familiar and you will be be able to stay on the same lesson plan. If the Mormon Church wants to form a new congregation, it follows a proven system for setting up the meetinghouse and can very quickly set in motion a process to get it up and running (complete with local clergy) very quickly and with very few issues. This saves time and money.

In a similar fashion, your business can benefit from strong systems that allow you to execute tasks and projects quickly and consistently. If you have proven systems for sales, marketing, product delivery, and customer service, your business will run much more efficiently and enjoy faster growth. If you’re unfamiliar with creating business systems, check out The E-Myth (affiliate link).

Member empowerment

The LDS Church makes it a high priority to encourage members to share their faith with others. In fact, one of the three main components of the mission of the church is “to proclaim the gospel.” Church members are encouraged to talk about their faith, share information with others, and speak openly about religion. This creates a culture that empowers all members to become “marketers” for the church. They are encouraged to follow their enthusiasm for their faith and make it a part of their everyday lives and communications. As a result, almost every member of the LDS church is prepared and eager to be a polite but ardent evangelist for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Your business can also turn employees into evangelists. If you continuously encourage your employees to talk about your company with others, share your brand, and openly talk about their jobs, your company will enjoy greater name recognition and awareness. This will result in more leads and potential customers. Empower your team to use tools like social media to inform the public what your company is all about.

Training

The Mormon Church has a phenomenal training program for its 52,000+ missionaries around the world (who are volunteers, by the way). Before serving, a missionary must spend anywhere from three weeks to three months in a training program that helps them utilize systems, processes, and procedures for reaching prospective new members. Every missionary goes through the exact same proven training process. If some part of the process is improved, it is rolled out to every missionary in the world. The Mormon Church is very serious about proper training and equips its missionaries with the systems and support they need to be successful.

Does your business provide sales training? If not, it might be worth considering. Proper sales training gets all your sales people on the same page, gives them a system to follow, and provides ongoing coaching. My favorite sales system is the Sandler system. If you’re in the Indianapolis area, I recommend Trustpointe or Lushin.

Rapid embracing of technology

Technology evolves at an frenzied pace and it can sometimes be difficult to keep up. However, the Mormon Church sees almost every form of new technology as an opportunity to grow the church’s brand and message. You’ll find that the church has a presence on just about every major social network in use today and even organizes messaging among specific focus areas, including newsroom communications, and member training just to name a few. The church has an incredibly strong SEO strategy which brings lots of relevant traffic to its websites. Additionally, the Mormon Church facilitates messaging through the use of apps, blogs, video, mobile, podcasts, and email. The church even has web portals and apps that allow all members of a congregation to instantly download directories and leadership information directly to their phones in order to facilitate easy communication between members. Most church buildings also now have wireless Internet access in order to encourage members to make use of these technologies as learning aids.

Your business can also benefit by embracing new technologies. If you look at each new form of technology as an opportunity to share your message, your brand will travel faster and your business will grow. Just as the Mormon Church does, carefully study each new tool or technology that evolves, decide how it can strengthen your brand messaging, and then deliberately integrate it into your business.

Partnerships

The Mormon Church does not see other religions as competition. Instead, church leaders throughout the world work with leaders of other faiths to serve and provide humanitarian relief. Some notable examples include Indian Ocean tsunami relief efforts in which the Mormon Church partnered with Islamic leaders and the church’s partnership with the Catholic Church to bring aid to Niger. Other less-dramatic events include interfaith concerts and other social events.

In a similar fashion, your business can also grow faster by leveraging partnerships. Instead of viewing other businesses in your space as competitors, try reaching out to them and looking for ways to work together. Not every prospect will choose to work with you and some may choose your competition (just as some people will choose another religion over Mormonism). However, if you have a positive working relationship with your competitors, you can create opportunities to refer to each other and network constructively, which raises the level of respect for everyone.

Conclusion

The Mormon Church continues to grow quickly and recruits new members very rapidly. With new churches and temples being built all the time, it’s obvious that the methods in and practices of the church lead to growth and success. So what can your business learn from the Mormon Church? By creating systems, embracing new technology, utilizing sales training, creating partnerships, and empowering your employees, you can have a business that enjoys similar growth and success.

Filed Under: Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
January 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Systematic Business Blogging

The benefits of business blogging are numerous. A great business blog can bring benefits in the form of SEO, authority, and increased trust. However, one of the most common complaints I hear when it comes to blogging is “I just don’t have time!”

Interested in overcoming this? Read more about it in my guest post for Rhoda Israelov called “Systematic Business Blogging“.

Filed Under: Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , ,
January 1, 2011 By 3 Comments

What did I ship in 2010?

Seth Godin wrote a great post this week listing the things he shipped in 2010. Taking some inspiration from his post, I am also listing the things I shipped last year. As Seth said, it doesn’t matter whether these things were a hit or not, just that I shipped them. Here is my list.

Most of these things were done with help from my outstanding team at SpinWeb. A huge thank you goes out to those who contributed and assisted.

I enjoyed this exercise and it helped me see 2010 with a new perspective. It also helped me see what things I wanted to ship but didn’t, which makes for a some nice goals for 2011.

What did you ship in 2010? I would love to hear via your comments below.

Filed Under: Design, Lifestyle, Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
October 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The secret to effective time management in social media

I give regular presentations and training sessions on social media, online marketing, and technology-related topics. My audiences include business owners, professionals, and non-profit teams. 100% of the time I get this question or some variation of it:

“How much time do you spend on this stuff?”

Variations include:

“How do you find the time for all this?”
“How many hours a week do you spend online?”
“How much time do I need to spend on social media?”

My favorite is:

“When do you actually work?”

If I sense that my audience is truly looking for some practical “runway-level” tips on time management with online marketing, I will talk about automation, batched activity, block scheduling, and so on.

However, sometimes I will give a much simpler answer:

“Love what you do.”

That’s it. If you love what you do, you won’t ever have to ask how to find the time to talk about it. Social media is about communication with other people. If you love what you do, I mean truly love what you do with a passion, then talking about it with others will be effortless and natural. It won’t be forced and pushy; it will be honest and passionate and your business will grow naturally as a result.

You won’t have to “find the time” to be active in social media. It will become a natural extension of what you already do. You will be excited to have a new set of tools to expand your network and participate with a learners mind.

The bad news is, if you don’t love what do this message will be uncomfortable for you. It might prompt you to question why you do what you do. It might make you think about change.

The good news is, what you do with your life is up to you.

So what is the secret to effective time management in social media? You could try block scheduling and other fancy things. Or you could simply love what you do.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
September 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Business blogging tips

Blogging is a fantastic way to build awareness for your business and area of expertise. Blogging allows your constituents to see the real voice behind your business and demonstrates your knowledge in your areas of expertise. It is also part of your permission marketing channel that can lead to new connections and opportunities.

However, blogging is hard.

Most people I talk to have a difficult time blogging because they are not sure what to write about, how to write, or how to keep up. Here are a few business blogging tips that will hopefully make blogging easier for you.

1. Keep a list of ideas and capture them in real time. If you try to come up with great ideas every time you sit down to blog, it can be difficult to maintain inspiration. However, if you capture your ideas into a list whenever they come to you, it will be much easier to blog when you have the time because you already have a list of ideas ready to go. I use Jott to capture ideas on the go.

2. Blog in a conversational style. Don’t try to use marketing speak or a stuffy corporate tone. Blog as if you are explaining your thoughts to a friend and write in simple, plain language. Content on the web should be easy to read to accommodate the shorter attention spans in this medium.

3. Don’t promote… educate, instead. No one wants to read a blog that blathers on and on about your company and how great your service is. People do want to read things that help them and provide value. If you want loyal readers and content that gets shared, keep it constituent-focused.

4. Don’t worry about word-count. Say what you need to say and stop there. A blog can be 500 words or a single paragraph. Seth Godin sometimes blogs in one sentence.

5. Blog about things that matter to your customers. If you provide marketing services, teach your customers how to market. If you provide health care services, teach your patients how to maintain proper health. If you sell products, teach your customers how to get the most from that product. The possibilities are endless.

Blogging can and should be fun. If you are passionate about what you do and you know what you are talking about, then relax and let the words flow. Don’t over-analyze it. Your constituents will appreciate an honest tone and valuable content. Future customers will take notice, as well.

Filed Under: Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
August 19, 2010 By 2 Comments

Top 10 reasons to attend my session on becoming an email ninja at Blog Indiana

So I found out this week that my session at Blog Indiana is at the same time as Kyle Lacy’s social media presentation. When I found this out I was, of course, a little concerned. Sure, everyone needs help with their email and pretty much all of us want to lower our stress levels, but Kyle is an awesome speaker and even wrote the book on Twitter marketing. How can I compete with that?

I started to sweat a little. What if there are hundreds, even thousands (or millions!) of Blog Indiana attendees out there who are on the fence and not sure which session they want to attend at 4pm on Friday? Such a quandary! Such angst that must cause!

Well, please allow me to offer you some advice. Here is why I would humbly suggest you attend my session on email management.

10. Sure, you could read Getting Things Done and learn all the stuff you need but as good as that book is, it’s honestly really boring. Wouldn’t an hour with me be more fun?

9. Inbox Zero is endorsed by Lorraine Ball. She even requires that all of her employees learn it!

8. Sure, you could go to another awesome social media presentation by Kyle Lacy but honestly, don’t you already know everything about social media by now?

7. Think of how desirable you will be to your significant other with your new email skills. It’s way sexier than bow-hunting skills…

6. How often does someone email you just to say “did you get my email”? Enough said.

5. There will be ninjas in the room.

4. Because 5,732 messages in your inbox is not good for your liver. It’s true… look it up.

3. Think of how much more productive you will be at work with your new email management skills. You might even get that big promotion!

2. C’mon, does Kyle’s ego really need your help?

And the number one reason to attend “Inbox Zero: How to Become an Email Ninja” at Blog Indiana on Friday:

1. Look at your inbox. Now look at mine. Now back to your inbox. Now back to mine…

See you there!

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
June 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Personal Branding with Social Media E-Book

Personal branding is becoming more important today as people are becoming more interested in relationships and personal communication. Sales professionals, job-seekers, and professionals in a variety of industries are finding that how they relate to people and how they are perceived in the marketplace on a personal level makes a huge difference in how successful they are.

Social media is enabling us to strengthen our personal brands like never before. In order to address this, I’ve written an e-book to help others understand the dynamics of personal branding using social media and how to take advantage of social tools to strengthen their personal brands.

The e-book is free and you are encouraged to share it with others. If you have any personal stories you would like to include, please feel free to contact me and I would love to include your notes.

The e-book can be downloaded here:

Personal Branding with Social Media (PDF)

As always, comments and feedback are welcome.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Marketing, Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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