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Do You Need Marketing or Social Media Advice? One Hour With Me Could Help

Would you like to pick my brain for an hour? There is a magic Paypal button below that can make this happen!

Maybe you’re just starting your business or nonprofit. Or maybe you’re already operating but just need a little push in the right direction. You can’t afford a huge branding strategy or a team of social media people… you’re bootstrapping, so you can’t afford much, period.

My role at Falk Harrison most often involves large engagements – big strategy, several meetings a month, and a total of 10-40 hours a month per client of intense work. I enjoy a big challenge, and plotting strategy for large multi-national corporations is certainly that.

Truth be told, though, I really do love working with small organizations too. Unfortunately, our cost structure at Falk Harrison does not allow for one-hour engagements. Judging by the number of requests I get for brainstorming coffees, lunches, after-work drinks and pick-your-brain meetings in general, I can tell there’s a huge need out there. I wanted to find a way to help everyone, while still feeding the family and being true to myself as a professional with a unique skillset.

For $125, you get an hour of great advice on the phone or via Skype (preferred). In the right circumstances, for St. Louis-based people, I can get together in person for a coffee. No matter how we meet, I can drop a great deal of knowledge on you in a hour’s time. I’m generally regarded as one of the top new media strategists in St. Louis, and my background as a CPA and CFO lends some real-world realistic thinking to the advice I give.

There are three steps in this process:
1. Submit payment via PayPal by clicking “Buy Now” below.
2. Send me an email at rizzotees [ at ] gmail dot com and let me know you’ve paid. Also, please provide me your contact info and a synopsis of what you’d like to discuss with me.
3. Prepare for our call. Create an agenda, or at the very least, have a list of questions prepared. Know what you want to talk about for the hour, and please email me any prep documentation you complete beforehand so that I can be prepared.

Only $125

Pay Chris $125 Using Dwolla


 
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I look forward to helping you out.

 

What is Wrong With This Picture?

Martha Stewart

This is an email I received from Martha Stewart’s company. If you can’t read it, you can click the picture to make it larger.

1. The email’s subject line portends serious problems ahead. Interruption of online access!

2. BUT…. we have some exciting news to share! Huh?

3. Martha Stewart is now posting for stock photography shots.

4. Oh, and by the way, Mother’s Day is coming up, but we’re taking all of our sites down for maintenance during this most crucial time of year, so don’t try to access your info on the sites. We know Mother’s Day is important and that we can be a huge resource to you as you prepare your brunch or set your table, but the sites must come down anyway. We’ll put them back up right after Mother’s Day. Sorry, that’s just how the IT maintenance schedule ball bounces.

The elements of this email all seemed just a bit incongruent, so I thought I’d share. I respect Martha Stewart and her business empire. This email just read very strangely, and the business decision to take the sites down over Mother’s Day seems like a mistake. Do you agree?

 

Great TV Commercial from The Guardian – The Three Little Pigs

I like this TV ad because it tries to capture the full range of communication outlets that now contribute to the development, dissemination and reach of information.

What’s Going On With Rizzo Tees? An Update

I started Rizzo Tees back in 2007 with the entrepreneurial dream of growing it out of control. I wanted to build a big, strong, healthy business, and of course I wanted to leave my CPA/Accounting life behind. While Rizzo Tees remains small today, I was able to escape the accounting world over two years ago. I’ve mentioned this several times (here and here), but I can say it once more: you have no idea what this career change has truly meant to me.

What of Rizzo Tees now? I’ve had a few people tell me they’ve noticed a change in my content output over the last year. They say I’ve moved away from t-shirt promotion and more towards discussion of new media strategy. I believe they are right. I’d say my job at Falk Harrison has a great deal to do with that. Finally, a job that I can enjoy!

Rizzo Tees remains in business, tees are still in stock and people are still buying them (especially the bacon ones). But my interests have changed in important ways. Listen to the podcast below to hear more about the direction I’m headed.

Click here for the 5-minute podcast.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

I Only Want Positive Comments on my Blog

Rush Fitness Complex Facebook Fail

The grisly details (before they delete the post). Thanks to Scott Stratten for bringing this to our attention.

Pinterest – My Appearance on Fox 2 TV

Thanks again to Angela Hutti and Fox 2 TV for having me in. This time we discussed the social media phenomenon known as Pinterest.

A link to the story on Fox 2’s site is here, and you can follow me on Pinterest here.

Six Tips on Dealing with People

Managing people is truly an art form. If you have ever had a team of people working for you, you know how challenging it can be. However, when you get the right team of people together and you’re able to teach, motivate and inspire them, you can move mountains.

I would have preferred to brainstorm about this for weeks and provide a longer, more complete list. I’ll have to save that for the book, I guess.:-) I felt like getting these six thoughts up on my blog right away. To wit, here’s an incomplete list of six tips on dealing with people.

1. Stop beating around the bush. People (men especially) hate begging for answers. Clear, concise communication aids in team-building. However, keep in mind that bluntness, rudeness and honesty all occupy the same grey area. Do your best to pick the right shade.

2. Don’t bother telling people to “just relax” when they’re upset. It’s not helpful. It only makes it worse. For you, It may be a time to say nothing. Listen to and absorb the venting. That’s how you can help. Bob Burg touched on this yesterday.

3. Smile. This goes SUCH a long way. Even my 7 year old has discovered this. She has noticed how the smiles she directs at people change their demeanor towards her. And she likes it.

4. Stop interrupting others while they’re talking. Even if it’s banal blabber, they desire to tell you this stuff. A person’s stories are important to them. They want you to have perspective so you know where they’re coming from. When you interrupt someone, you disrespect them at a deep level. This is hard for me. I have a terrible short-term memory and must blurt my thoughts out before I forget them. If I’m sitting with a pen and paper (or iPad and stylus), I’ll jot the thought down so I don’t forget to mention it. If I am with someone I’ve known for a long time, or if I’m having a heated discussion with someone, I just can’t wait to talk. I have to work hard to resist the urge to interrupt.

5. Follow your own rules. This goes not only for managing people that work for you, but parenthood as well. You’ve heard “leading by example” a million times, so I suppose this is the 1,000,001st time. It’s that important. Breaking this rule kills teams. An example: you run a company and throw a tantrum because your employees never show up “on time,” even though the work day has never had an official start time. So in a tizzy, you set 8:30am as the official start of the day – be on time from now on! And then you casually show up the next day at 9:45am. Boss, you can’t do that! This happened at one of my previous jobs, and it made it increasingly difficult to take anything the boss said seriously. It was predictably unsettling.

6. Are you capable of walking in another man’s shoes? Can you truly see things from another’s point of view? If we as humans could do this, we’d likely eliminate half the wars we fight. While that would decimate the defense industry, it would keep more families, friendships and teams together. Even in difficult situations that seemingly require an immediate decision, try to take the time to discover what motivates others. Not only will this help you make the most reasoned decision, but it will better prepare you for the next time a challenging situation arises. For instance, from a business perspective, I can say this: the goal of a business negotiation should not be to defeat the other side, but to work together for mutual benefit. That more properly sets both sides up for deal 2, 3 and so on.

Leave a comment below and give me your tips 7, 8, 9 and 10!

Ray Lewis Can Motivate a Man

All joking (or nonjoking) aside about his legal troubles from a decade past, let’s be clear: Ray Lewis is a better motivational speaker than you. Watch the video above and tell me you didn’t stand up and run through a brick wall. People like Tony Robbins eschew the “motivational speaker” label, and I suppose that’s because some public figures have conferred a tinge of sleaziness on it. For some reason, certain motivational speakers don’t have our trust. However, I like listening to people like Ray Lewis, Tony Robbins and Gary Vaynerchuk. If you hear truth in their powerfully delivered messages, you may be motivated to clear your head and achieve something greater than you ever thought possible.

Note:
1. Ray’s speech is short. It’s not ten minutes of rah-rah. He speaks for a bit longer than a minute and thirty seconds.
2. He didn’t have to curse to make his point. I like cursing, but it is not necessary to be effective.
3. He is speaking to basketball players; he’s a football player. Nevertheless, his message carries across different sports and, for me, even applies to business.
4. His opening sentences cleared their heads. Those young men may have been nervous before this game. He told them to forget everything else, consider that there may be no tomorrow, and asked them what that would mean for today.
5. He then made them believe that, facing a tomorrow that wouldn’t exist, they would actually think about the man beside them and not themselves. TEAMWORK. I thought it was brilliant.

p.s. Stanford won the game, and went on to win the NIT Championship.

Google Phone – The Future of Advertising


New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users’ Ears

Let’s hope it never gets this bad.

“Go march yourself! Down to Chase Bank!”

“Toyota Tacoma, starting at under $16,000.”

Talking Instagram With Angela Hutti on Fox2Now

Thanks to FOX2now and Angela Hutti for having me on to talk about my favorite photo app, Instagram. I hope to come back and do it again.

(Link to the video on Fox 2’s website, in case the embedded video above doesn’t work)

And in the irony of all ironies…