The Things That Can Happen When You Don't Know Where You're Going

When I was still trying to figure out this next phase of my life I went to a book launch by a man I had never heard of before. The book was called World Wide Rave and the author was someone named David Meerman Scott. 

I was quite taken with David, his story and his perspective on what he referred to as the new rules of Marketing and PR. He had worked for large corporations and had been fired from them. So we had a lot in common. 

I started to follow him on the social networks and became a regular reader of his blog. I learned a lot from David. He has always impressed me as one of the few marketing gurus out there who actually walks the walk. He doesn't just preach engagement and sharing, he practices it. He has a no gobbledygook rule that I have adopted. To say his thinking helped to form my own on how to use digital tools to brand and sell is an understatement.

In one of those synchronistic twists of fate that first meeting was at the Kimmel Center at NYU - several years before I joined the adjunct faculty. 

When I first started to teach Digital Marketing  and was in search of a textbook, the only thing that I found that could come close to being a comprehensive overview of what marketing in a digital world looked like was his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

I let him know and made both his book and his blog required reading. 

David has a new book.  As part of his research he solicited ideas on perspectives on selling from his readers. Needless to say, with twenty-five years in sales and sales management to my credit, I had a lot to say on the subject so I sent off an email.

David responded and said he wanted to do a phone interview.

That was a year ago in September. I remember hanging up the phone and trying not to get too attached to whether that interview would actually make it in the final draft. Instead I exercised extreme gratitude that a handful of years after first meeting someone whose work impressed me so, my story might even be considered for one of his books.

I guess my gratitude worked because I am honored to report back that I am in the book! 

I have no idea what I said - I'll be back to you after I get my copy - but David tells me my story is perfect. The official publication date of The New Rules of Sales and Service is September 2, 2014. 

In the meantime, David is practicing the marketing methods he preaches and offering this great slide presentation to give you a peek at what you will find in the book. 

When I started this part of my journey back in 2008 I had no idea where I was going. What I've discovered along the way is that as long as you're willing to put one foot in front of the other and keep yourself open, you will meet the people you need to meet, you'll learn what you need to know and you will never cease to be amazed at the synchronicity of it all and the delightful surprises that will occur. 

Like being quoted in The New Rules of Sales and Service! 

What I Learn From My NYU Students

I teach for a lot of reasons. At the top of the list is because I genuinely enjoy it. I like my students. I like educating. I like encouraging people to think.

I also teach because I like learning. Anyone who has ever taught, and taught well, will tell you that teaching forces you to know more about a subject than you would otherwise. It keeps you at the top of your game.

But that is only part of what I learn. I also learn what my students teach me.

I tell them that going in. That I expect that I will learn from them. For starters it's a graduate class in digital marketing. The subject matter is a work in progress with new tools and new approaches occurring every day. It's impossible to know every single detail, but we need to try. Sharing what we find is our best hope to stay ahead of the changes. 

But there is more to what I learn than that.

The majority of my students are international. The global perspective they bring from sharing something as simple as how in Taiwan 7-11 is a much bigger part of the community than simply a place to buy a Slurpee enriches my classroom. It also forces me to slow it down and think more carefully how I might explain a concept since for many English is not their first language. I can't assume because something is widely understood in the US, it is in the rest of the world. They teach me how to present better in the classroom. The bonus is it hones my skills for when I am working with my outside clients.


I've learned that just because one generation is inherently more comfortable with technology, does not mean with that comes an understanding of how to use all these new tools strategically.  Generations need not be divided by technological advance but rather help each other as we learn this new stuff by getting our hands dirty - together.

Most importantly they teach me by offering  what Arianna Huffington calls "third metric" moments in which I can define my success not by power or how much money I am making (trust me - adjuncts are not highly compensated employees) but in having changed someone's way of looking at something.

When a student tells me I "inspired" them or thanks me for "seeing their potential" or "encouraging" them I am keenly aware of the ability we all have to make a difference in someone's life. 

I will never forget the student who this semester when I asked the class what they got out of their midterm presentation in which they were required to present themselves as a brand in three minutes, said the one thing she did not expect was that the experience would make her fall in love with who she was again.  

Moments like that make me downright teary eyed and others just make me smile. Like the email I got yesterday from a student who just finished the semester with me and "had to share" how she experienced first hand the power of connection that social media affords us when she shared a picture on Instagram of her favorite bakery.

What I learn from my students - it's why I teach.


ps. You don't have to be an NYU graduate degree student to  have me teach you. Your Digital You - the blueprint - a workshop designed to improve your digital profile returns with two dates in June - 6/12 and 6/24. Use the code EARLYbird for a special discount.

pps. My workshops can be customized and brought in-house to your company or organization. Email me for more information.

How Digital Tools Can Work - A True Story

One of the requirements in my NYU graduate class is creating a blog. It serves two purposes. A place to complete the weekly homework assignments and a vehicle through which my students can learn experientially what it means to create and publish content.

I encourage them all to tweet out their posts and to interact with influencers online. That's always a challenge and one I easily relate to. It's one thing to complete a homework assignment. It's quite another to put that out into the world and to try and make friends with strangers. It's a scary place, not unlike the one I wrote about earlier this week.

But this is what can happen when you do.

The assignment last week was to find an example of newsjacking, a term defined as "the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business" and popularized by David Meerman Scott . One of my students wrote her post on what the London Hilton Hotel did to ride the news cycle around an event called Blue Monday,  a concept created a few years ago to spotlight what is considered the most depressing day of the year - the third Monday in January. 

Here's how Sonia used social media to get more attention to her post.  She tweeted the link and included David Meerman Scott in the tweet. David is one of those rare marketing people that actually practices the concept of social engagement - as opposed to just talking about it - which is just one of the many reasons I choose his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR as the text for this class.

He read the blog and tweeted her back. 

This accomplished a few things. It made Sonia very happy. She got to see first hand, in real time,  how social media can connect. It's also a great example of CRM on David's part. David is a marketing influencer and Sonia now feels a greater and more personal connection than she did before and is more likely to help spread his messages.  And it put her blog link into his Twitter feed with his 104,000 + followers. 

When I saw what had happened I had to jump into the conversation. David already knows I use his book as our text but I wanted him to know Sonia was one of my students. 

The moral of this story is that this stuff works! Digital tools allow us to make new connections, expand our sphere of influence and overall - improve our digital profiles. 

In this case it also gave me material for a blog and a great segue to promote my new workshops! Your Digital You - the blueprint - a workshop designed to improve your digital presence.  

How To Own Your Story

One of the perks of teaching a graduate class at NYU is that I get to interact with students who come from all over the world with the most fascinating backgrounds. I encourage them to share their stories. As I see it their stories are part of what makes up their personal brand and it's important to get clear on what that is - especially in today's world where your digital footprint means so much. 

This always proves a challenge. 

Even more so than the telling of the story is in the owning of it. 

By owning it I mean really standing in it. 
Liking it.
Every inch of it.
The good and the not so good.
All the twists and turns.  
The bumps and detours along the way. 
The stuff that might embarrass us if we allow it to. 

It sounds easier than it is. 
Which is why most of us don't do it.
This lack of ownership is not limited to my grad students.

We trivialize our achievements.
We ignore the parts of us that others see as assets.
We think our stories aren't interesting enough.
We compare our stories and see ourselves falling short.

We don't see our own value.
We lack belief in who we are and what we are doing.
We forget that what makes a story good is all those twists and turns we've taken.

As someone who has reinvented three times my story has evolved over time. Each time I stumbled a bit before I got going. But when I started to own the place I was in my story - my authentic self took over and that's when it all started to flow.

When we own our stories we become a magnet. People want to know who we are. Read our stuff. Buy our products. Hire us. Maybe even take us on a date.


So how does one own their story?

You start by learning to like it. To see all the steps you took to get you to now as having purpose and value. 

It might require a mild out of body experience in which you step back and look at yourself as if you are someone you have never met - just some stranger you struck up a conversation with at a cocktail party.

Or simply an hour with a pen and paper writing down all those things you're good at, have experience with, the places you've lived, the adventures you've embarked on, the mark you want to make on the world, what makes you smile.

The more convinced you allow yourself to become that your story matters - the more you own it. And when we own our stories - everything changes.

So tell me - are you owning your story?


psst...the Big Countdown to Spring Sale continues over at Amazon! 

The Egg Timer Theory - Revisited

I've read two posts on the subject of time in the last two days. I took it as a 'sign' - of something. Just don't ask me what. So I waited - certain a third blog - somewhere - was being written - and was going to show up in my vast array of links on social nets.

Three times and those who believe as I do in the mysterious ways of the Universe and a random occurrence now becomes a 'sign' - after which action must be taken. But again - don't ask me what action. I hadn't thought things through that far. I was hoping when the third post arrived I would know.

So I waited. 

I didn't think about writing my own blog even though I haven't posted since last Wednesday and it was - well- time.  Because quite frankly in the afterglow of my thirty day blogging experiment things got busy. The summer semester at NYU was ending, grades needed to be uploaded and I was preparing for an in-house workshop with a new client. It didn't seem like I really had the time to write as much.

OMG. Did I just write that I didn't have the time? 

Me - who gets obsessed with this subject. Whose written many blogs on the topic.

Me- who managed to write an entire guide/manifesto on how to create time for your life. 

Me - the organized one who has this reputation for getting so much done was flailing. I'd pressed pause to regroup and seem to have gotten stuck. 

And there I was reading other people's words who sounded like something I would have said. And should have - except I had convinced myself the time just wasn't there for me to write. To do what I love. 

Oy! 

So I reread what David Meerman Scott wrote. And Mitch Joel. And I stopped waiting for my 'sign'. 

I set the timer and I started writing.

The 'sign' became crystal clear. The third post on time was supposed to be written - by me - to remind me - that I do have the time and the words to write another blog. I just have to sit down and do it.

I also have to set that timer.



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Wasting Time - Day 10

I hate wasting time. The older I get the more I hate it. I’m far too aware that I just don’t have as much of it left as I used to. So to waste it - to not to make the most of each and every moment - to me that’s worse than wasting money on that very expensive hand painted tuxedo shirt I bought in Aspen one winter twenty odd years ago and wore only once. Money you can always figure out a way to make more of. But time. You can’t get that back.

As the author of a book on the subject, It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life, you might think I never commit this crime. But I do. And when I think over the past five years I admit readily that I have most definitely wasted a bunch of time.

Like when I was waiting for The Book Deal. The one every writer dreams of - or at least used to dream of - back when you didn’t have to commit some obscenely outrageous act or become a reality star, to be deemed worthy of a coveted deal from a Big Six - I mean Big 5 Publisher.

I waited and waited. I was that sure it would happen. I just didn’t know where or when.

But as we know, it didn’t happen. When I knew I couldn’t waste one more minute waiting to get picked, I picked myself and self-published, The Secrets They Kept.

I think sometimes of how much further along I would have been if I had made that decision earlier. If I hadn’t been wasting time waiting for outside validation that I was a good enough writer to be read. 

But of course that is the biggest waste of time of all! 

The truth is alot of really great things happened because of that waiting. 

I would never have started to blog and learn about things like Twitter and Facebook. I wouldn't have self-published which really forced me to take a very deep dive into all things digital. I wouldn't have taken all those courses and attended conferences and discovered people like Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott who reminded me how much I love marketing and left me qualified to teach a class in digital marketing at NYU. I wouldn't be consulting and demystifying digital for individuals and organizations.

So I suppose I was never really wasting time at all. I was just getting prepared for what was next. I just didn't yet know what that was going to look like.


note: This is Day #10 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.

The Not So Surprising Truth About Selling

When I first got into sales, non-sales types would tell me they didn't know how I could do that. Talk to strangers and get them to listen me. Earn their trust so they might buy commercials on the radio or television station I was offering at the moment.

Sales, I would tell them, is not for everyone. At the time I believed it.

But that's all changed. In today's digital world, everyone is selling. If not a product or an idea, they are selling themselves as a brand through something as simple as a LinkedIn Profile. Understanding that process and how to apply it is critical for anyone interested in earning a living. Sales has to be for everyone, at least those of us who want to succeed.

I've been telling clients that since I left the corporate world in 2008. Most don't want to hear it. They have trouble buying into the notion that they need to learn and understand the process of selling to further their careers. They hear sales and they think sleazy sales person a la Alec Baldwin in Glengary Glen Ross. 

Which is what intrigued me to read To Sell Is Human, The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, by Dan H. Pink, "a fresh look at the art and science of selling."

So what is this "fresh look"?  

Dan Pink takes a subject, unfriendly and scary to so many and makes it approachable and yes, human. He creates a new ABC of sales. Instead of Always Be Closing, he applies the new attributes of Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity. He offers some great exercises to practice these skills, several of which I have been using in the class in Digital Marketing I teach at NYU, for the explicit purpose of reinforcing how selling must be understood to be a better marketer. He makes a very good case for what is inherently human in the selling process and how all of us, every day are using these skills to some degree.

But is "the surprising truth" surprising? Not to me. 
As a seasoned sales professional, I could not help noticing that so much of what the author speaks to as new to the sales process in the 21st Century, was what I had learned  in my early days in Radio when we had something called the RAB Consultancy Sell. 

That approach to selling taught us to listen more than speak, to unearth the client's problems before offering solutions, to be an expert resource for their business and ours, to personalize our presentations and be real, to be agile and think on our feet, to earn their trust, and to build relationships with these people.

Of course over the years, the trend, certainly in media was not for management to reinforce that approach but to try and get it all on the same cookie cutter PowerPoint deck and to push the sales person to get the deal. At any cost. Something that ties back to big companies being pressured to foster policies driven by keeping the stock price up rather than what is best for the clients.

Nevertheless, this is a fresh look and a much needed one especially for those resistant to accepting that selling is a part of the human experience and an art and science worth honing your skills. It is also a worthwhile read for the sales professional and the heads of corporations who may have forgotten the very skills that got them success in the first place.

But surprising? Not so much.

10 Tips For An Effective Presentation

Learning to give an effective presentation is probably one of the most important skills you will ever need. Yet the idea of standing in front of a room makes most of us a bit unhinged, especially if the group who is listening is a crowd of more than one.

Some of you may think making presentations is something other people do, but not you. Never. Not your thing. But if you think about it, you're always presenting something. Your wares. Yourself. Sometimes formally. Sometimes spontaneously.  It's a skill that translates into everyday life. It makes sense to get good at it.

So what makes a good presentation?

When I was asked to speak to a group of sports management majors at NYU in a workshop on Public Speaking last week, I made my list of what I think is most important.


1-Learn to tell a good story. The best speakers are nothing more than really good storytellers. They engage and connect with their audience. You never feel they are speaking at us, but to us.

2-Know your stuff. Inside out. Don't pretend to know it. Really know it.  Know your competition's stuff as well. Understand that spinning facts to your advantage does not mean outright lies.

3-Keep it simple.  We're all so overloaded with information today, if someone is not clear and concise with their content, we are going to tune it out. I call it systemic ADD.

4-Pause. We're all so afraid to stop moving, the last place we consider it is when talking. Yet used effectively, there is nothing better than a moment of silence to keep a crowd engaged.

5-Learn to speak without props. We're all a bit addicted to the razzle dazzle. Yet the most effective speakers don't need a PowerPoint behind them or a video intro. They are the true showstopper. Their story telling skills are good with or without the special effects.

6- Know your audience. Have an idea of who you are speaking to. Try and pull them into your remarks. If you can figure out a way to relate to them they will relate to you.

7-Smile. A real smile. A genuine smile. Not one that looks contrived or faked. One that comes from knowing your stuff and feeling confident and comfortable in your own skin.

8-Eye Contact.  Personally I never trust anyone who can't look me in the eye. Making eye contact is not easy in a large group, but it is also not impossible.

9-Prepare and Practice. You don't ever want to look like you are reading. It's boring. It's a sign you don't know your material that well. Practice. Especially for the really big presentations.

10- Be yourself. Have fun. If you're prepared and know your stuff this is easy.  If you're not, the audience will wonder who you are.  Kirstie Alley said it brilliantly a few weeks ago on Dancing with Stars, "I can only be the best me I can be. It's the one thing in the world no one else can be."

To see what these tips look like in action, I used the speech Bill Clinton gave at the Democratic National Convention. He is a master story teller, smart, articulate, personable, at ease, passionate and genuinely enjoying himself. The bar he sets is the one anyone wanting to learn how to be an effective presenter should strive to reach.

Let's see if anyone comes close in the next series of debates.

Pink Slippers On The Reinvention Runway

Last August I wrote a series of posts on my advice to those receiving the dreaded "Pink Slip." It's almost a year later and while I believe the economy is starting to turn for the positive, I also think those pink slips will continue for a while longer.  Corporations like to use difficult economic times as a justification to restructure, reorganize and weed out those they couldn't see a way to get rid of before. They're not quite done yet.

The question is what to do if one comes your way.

I, as always, have contended that the "Pink Slip" does not have to be dreaded. It can be the beginning of something much better if you allow it.

And if you follow my advice # 4  and  #8 you may want to check out this free discussion at NYU Stern on June 9,  "Seeing the Silver Lining in the Pink Slip- From Pink-slipper to Entrepreneur."  According to the event details this panel believes as I do, that the pink slip can open the door to doing what you really want.

Whether you are fearing the pink slip, hoping for one or just interested in hearing how others have taken the leap to do something different you might want to check it out. If nothing else you will not only be following my Pink Slip advice #3, you will be surrounding yourself with like minded individuals.