Success?

I'm way behind on my reading, at least the reading material that I subscribe to that hits my inbox. I do my best to stay on top of it, but there are times where I'm more than a month behind. Take this article for instance - Want to be Extremely, Wildly, Radically Successful?. It was written by Joel Petersen, Chairman of JetBlue Airways and published more than a month ago on LinkedIn... but I'm sharing it now...

To summarize my understanding of Mr. Petersen's point in his article: there's a ton of articles out there (online) containing quick lists of things you need to do, almost presented as mere tweaks you can make to your daily life and be amazingly successful.

Mr. Petersen reminds us that all of these quick fix articles out there are the "Unplanned Offspring" of Stephen Covey's hugely successful book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Having worked with Mr. Covey, Mr. Petersen understands perhaps more than most what Mr. Covey was trying to communicate in his book. There are no quick lists or quick fixes to be more effective and therefore more successful. It takes hard work, it takes reflection and the understanding of oneself and the courage to make fundamental changes in oneself to be balanced and make the right choices in your personal life and professional life quickly and easily, almost subconsciously, because in the core of your being you know who you are and who you want to be and everything you do reflects that. Whew!... run-on sentence, I know... but you get my point.

Mr. Covey's book was passed to me by father. He read it when it was first published in the early 1990's and he was in his forties then. He passed it to me after he retired and I was in my forties. I read it and it had a profound impact on my life.

Mr. Petersen's article reminded again of how important that book is. It reminded me to make sure I continually come back to it and read it and practice it's teachings and pass it along to my kids... hopefully before they're forty :)

D

Boulder, Colorado: A Must Visit For A Tech Startup Entrepreneur

In 2013 I found myself working for a business technology developer... Full disclosure: my brother Kelly Powers worked there and recommended me for this position. It was a pleasure to be able to work with my brother while I worked for them.

I was excited when Kelly and I were asked to join the team in Boulder for a week in August. It was great opportunity to meet and work with the team there for a week. The trip to Boulder also offered an opportunity to see the tech startup community there that I had heard so much about first-hand and get a glimpse at what makes it so successful.

Boulder has the impressive distinction of being the top city for tech startups in the US. Prior to arriving there, I reached out to some friends on social media and they were kind enough to help connect me to people within Boulder’s startup community.

Most of our time in Boulder was spent working of course, but there were a couple of evenings where Kelly and I hit the town to check out Boulder’s startup scene. Here are some of the Boulder startup community highlights we experienced:

- Pitch to Developers. This meetup is for tech developers that are interested in getting involved in the creation of a startup, and for entrepreneurs that are looking for developers. Startups would pitch, answer questions and then setup in a corner of the room with snacks and beer and network with developers in the room. Get more information at www.pitchtodevelopers.com or www.meetup.com/pitch-to-developers .

Kelly inside the Pixel Space's new digs. Kelly was a rockstar in Boulder.

- Pixel Space Launch. Pixel Space is a startup that provides a residential experience complete with tons of geeky amenities, right in the heart of downtown Boulder. It’s a great looking space and a place I hope to stay when I visit Boulder in the future. They threw a fantastic party and we met some great people like Michael Dusing (@mdusing), Joe Sampson (@youngJsampson), Chris Hayes (@heizusan), Tim Williams (@timwilliamz) and Monika Wittig (@lan_monika). Check out www.pixelspace.co or @PixelSpaceCo on Twitter.

Kelly and I trying the 1 litre of beer they serve at the Bohemian Biergarten with Tim O'Shea in downtown Boulder... My recollection of observations and specific information around Boulder's startup community understandably gets a little fuzzy after this point :)

- Drinks, dinner and more drinks with Tim O’Shea (@tmoshea on Twitter). Among other things, Tim is the Events Chair for Boulder Startup Week and is incredibly connected to the community and entrepreneurs thriving there. He’s also incredibly generous with his time, knowledge and experience in Boulder. Tim gave us the lay of the land and introduced us to many of the people we met in Boulder.

I can’t say enough about the city of Boulder and its startup community and I can’t wait to go back. It's a town that must be experienced if you are an entrepreneur. You'll find every conversation with every person you meet to be positive and full of encouragement, support and advice.

D

Social Media as a CRM for Sales

Have you ever Googled "Social CRM for Sales"?

There's a lot of information on the subject, but I was little disappointed to find the CRM's dominating the search results not articles on how social media can be used. Let me explain...

Client / Customer / Contact Relationship Management (CRM) solution providers are desperately trying to integrate social media into their products. On a basic level, CRM's allow their users to connect a contact's Twitter and LinkedIn so the user can quickly link to those channels and do some social listening to potentially build a stronger relationship with that contact. Some are trying to go further. Have you ever considered turning this idea on its head... and use social media as your CRM?

First let me state that I love CRM's and have used various ones consistently for the last 6 years. They are an amazing tool for sales, managing leads and measuring what's in your sales pipeline. The following information is not being shared as a replacement for a CRM. It's simply another technique I've employed with some success.

I've been practising using social media as a CRM for sales for a few years now. Let me share what I've been doing and you can see if it is a technique that will work for you. It's quite simple and I've broken it out into the following steps. We'll use Twitter and LinkedIn as our social media tools in our Social CRM solution, but you could probably use Instagram and LinkedIn, Pinterest and LinkedIn or others. LinkedIn is where we end this journey typically as I explain below.

Step #1: Follow Leads on Twitter
Once I've found a company or person I want to work with, I do my best to find all of their social media channels. If they're on Twitter I start there. Twitter is ideal as you need no prior relationship with a person or a brand to start following them... it's not creepy... in fact it's expected. It's helpful also that you break the people / brands you're following into lists. This makes the next step easier.

Step #2: Engage
This may take some time but eventually the leads you're following on Twitter may say something or ask something through Twitter that you can contribute to. As with many things, timing is everything, but it's what we're expected to do on social media - engage, network, provide value, develop new relationships and expand our networks.

I like to use Twitter's lists. I choose a list of people / companies I want to engage with, review recent posts or tweets and if I can add value to a conversation, I'll jump in!

Here's an example of a conversation from the other night:

Now I don't know Tari and Tom Di Bello and they don't know me. But I LOVE Okanagan wine and Tom is one of the best winemakers in the region! I love the winery business and the stories and experiences they create with their brands and I've had the pleasure of working with a few great Okanagan wineries.

It's important to note that I didn't reach out to Tom and Tari to try to develop a business relationship with them. I reached out because I had some valuable information, insight and experience that might help them answer the question they posed. If a business relationship develops where I can help their business or another business in their network - great! If not, I was happy to help them with this question - that's it!

Step #3: Move Contacts to LinkedIn for Conversion
So, once you've engaged contacts on Twitter and you have developed a rapport, you can ask to add your contact to your LinkedIn network. LinkedIn, more than any other network, has been the best network for my business. I have established relationships with every connection and when I message a contact on LinkedIn to meet for a coffee, I always get a meeting.

This may ruffle some feathers out there, but if you and I don't know each other and you are trying to connect with me on LinkedIn - you're wasting your time and mine. LinkedIn is my special happy place where I only keep my most precious business contacts.

LinkedIn has always maintained that you must know the person you want to connect with on their platform. They've lightened up on this in recent years in my opinion and lately I've been getting connection requests like followers on Twitter.

 So that's it. For me, by using Twitter and LinkedIn in this way it helps me to filter legitimate business contacts from business contacts I'd like to get to know better. How do you use social media to develop business leads? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Or do you have questions? Connect with me through my website and let's chat!

D