The Hot Seat and the Beatitudes: Great Teachers of Humility

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to do a “Hot Seat” presentation at a conference I attended. What that involves is talking about a new business you have under development to a panel of experts in order to get some candid feedback about how you might improve your business model, some things you might have overlooked, other opportunities you could pursue and overall constructive feedback.

Unfortunately, I was introduced as “the guy who sold ClickZ for $16M to Internet.com” (which in itself is misleading, as I state in my “About Me” page on this blog). This led to one of the panelists asking me quite earnestly why, if I had experienced so much success in my life, would I subject myself to a Hot Seat where my ideas would get picked apart and I would risk humiliation.

I answered that simply because I may have had success in a business in the past, doesn’t mean that I am assured of success in the future. Later, in private conversation, I told her that my biggest mistakes and failures have come about because I have refused to seek out or listen to constructive feedback from those who might know a little more than I do about the terrain I was wandering in to, and that for this venture, I wanted to make damn certain that my assumptions and subsequent plans were based on a firm foundation of truth.

Fact of the matter is, there was a fundamental fact about the nature of the audience I was pursuing that I would have noticed had I really paid attention to the internet marketers I had breakfast with that morning. Thank God that panel was there to point out this oversight and make some solid suggestions about what adjustments I would need to make in my business and revenue models in order to succeed with this market.

Were I of the “my sh*t doesn’t stink because I made millions on a business venture back in 2000″ frame of mind, I would have never cared to seek out their guidance and would have subsequently gone blindly forward to a certain debacle.

I now feel much more confident in my business plan, knowing that by showing a little humility, I was guided by people who truly want me to succeed and have a far greater chance at success than I did before.

But it is a little weird that people think that just because you had one major success in your life, you’re a lock in for future success. It’s also disconcerting that people think that I wouldn’t be open to advice or guidance just because I succeeded once.

Business history is full of the stories of men and women who have experienced a great success only to have it followed by numerous failures, and I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve been through a few since ClickZ — mainly because of the mind set those panelists expected me to have.

I found out last week that Napoleon Hill, the author of the all time bestseller, “Think and Grow Rich”, in fact died penniless after a history of going through one get rich quick scheme after another.

It’s all too clear that the same thing could happen to me if I don’t operate under the same level of humility, teachability, egolessness and emptiness that I and others have had as a mindset prior to experiencing great success.

Last week, in church, our Associate Rector had the opportunity to preach on the Beatitudes — an opportunity he blew royally by putting himself above the scripture, chuckling about the differences between Matthew and Luke’s version and whether or not it was “The Sermon on the Mount” or “The Sermon on the Plain”. Nevertheless, I ignored his half hour of blathering and posturing, and actually read the scripture for what it had to say:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The lesson I took from this was that an attitude of emptiness (not being full of yourself), hunger, thirst, openness, teachability, etc is the mindset one must have to enjoy the blessings of life.

It’s so easy to believe your own b.s. when you’ve had a little success.

But the cup that is empty gets filled. Those that are thirsty get their thirst quenched. The hungry get fed. Those that seek knowledge and understanding learn. Those that ask, receive. Those that seek, find. Those that knock, get the door answered.

It’s all in your approach to life isn’t it? An attitude of emptiness will help you get filled in the way you need.

No need to go on. I’ll be accused of preaching.

If the dear woman who asked me that question so earnestly actually reads this, she’ll understand better where I’m coming from.

And thanks to those who have guided me back to humility of thought over the past few years.

I needed it.

So often, when you see a movie, you hear people mumbling and grumbling on the way out that “the book was better”, griping that the movie didn’t stay true to the book.

Well, I saw The Pursuit of Happyness about three weeks ago. It was fabulous. Heart wrenching. Painful to watch. Inspiring. A movie I would highly recommend to anyone who reads this, if for no other reason, to remind us all that when things get tough — and I mean really tough — we have the strength within us to endure, to be resilient, to fight back, and to conquer the circumstances that make our lives a living hell.

Last night, I finished reading the book, The Pursuit of Happyness. It was fabulous. A must read for everyone who reads this blog. One of the more powerful books you’ll have the opportunity to read this year.

Fact of the matter is, however, the book is very different from the movie.

The movie starts when Chris Gardner is in his mid to late twenties, married, with child, and selling medical equipment.

The book starts with Chris Gardner as a small child, takes you all the way through his painful, brutal childhood. I thought I had problems having had a father who punished me by spanking me with a belt. He had a Sonny Liston lookalike stepfather who regularly beat the living shit out of him and threw him out of the house (not to mention beating his mother senseless and having her sent to prison on trumped up charges on more than one occasion).

The movie ends with Chris Gardner successfully completing his training at Dean Witter, leaving us to believe everything was rosy from then on out.

The book takes us all the way to the present day, but makes it clear that his problems were only beginning when he completed the training at Dean Witter.

The movie makes for a fascinating and thought provoking hour and a half glimpse at the adult life of Chris Gardner.

The book is 300 pages of penetrating insight into his psyche, his history and what drove him forward to be the success he is today.

One could criticize the movie by pointing out that there are elements therein that were nowhere to be found in the book. One could also say that it mangled the facts on more than one occasion in order to make the story flow better. All that is true.

But both the book and the movie tell the truth, even though the movie takes a brief stroll from the facts every so often.

But it’s not a big deal.

If you can forgive Hollywood that transgression, The Pursuit of Happyness is the kind of movie you can take your kids to just to give them a lesson on how difficult life can be. There aren’t too many movies like that anymore.

But savor the book for yourself, and make the differences between the two good dinnertime conversation where you can share interesting details about Gardner’s childhood and upbringing, as well as what made the difference for him to overcome obstacles that would cripple most of us for years, if not a lifetime.

In this era of the victim that we live in, it’s nice to see a book and a movie dedicated to a true hero.

Maybe it’s because I am the son of a Methodist minister, but sometimes I can’t help but to compare developments I see around me to what I see happening in the church.

Back when I was a kid, the mainstream denominations (Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and of course, Catholics) ruled the roost when it came to religion. The fundamentalists, pentacostalists and evangelicals were smaller, non-influential churches derisively referred to as “bible thumpers” and “holy rollers”. Respectable people didn’t go to those churches (I’m talking early to mid 60’s here, folks). Only the uneducated, the simple-minded, the folks looking for an easy answer, people with such dark pasts that they’d never shadow the doors of a “respectable” church.

But something happened over the past 30-40 years.

The evangelicals, using media and marketing technologies that were beneath the dignity of respectable episcopalians like me, began to define a whole new set of rules in the practice of religion in America.

Their influence reached into the practice of politics, and Presidents haven’t been able to get elected without the blessing and strong support of evangelicals for more than 20 years now.

Meanwhile, the mainstream denominations have lost membership, money and influence. They’re floundering.

The ones that are flourishing are adopting techniques they learned from the evangelicals without actually becoming evangelicals themselves.

It’s been amazing to watch.

So what does that have to do with the normal topic of this blog, namely business?

A lot.

I’ve been in the business of online marketing and advertising for 12 years now. I’ve experienced tremendous success and some humbling failures as well.

I’ve watched, over the past couple of years, as “internet marketers”, whom I have generally thought of as fly by night used car salesmen and sleazy operators, have continued to grow their successes in an astounding fashion. I’m finding my old approaches don’t work as effectively as they once did, or if they do, do so very slowly.

My jaw drops as I see people I know and respect adopt some of the techniques and practices of those I thought were charlatans, do so in a classy manner and meet with the same astounding success as their intellectual predecessors.

I’m feeling the need to change my game. I don’t feel I have the time I once had to wait around.

My gut feel about all this was further reinforced today when I read Dave Taylor’s Intuitive.com blog entry for today, entitled “The Best Internet Marketing Deal of 2007 is Happening Today!“.

I’ve known Dave for over 10 years, having met him at the Web Advertising Conference in Monterrey, CA in 1997. He’s always been an above board, straight up, respectable kind of guy in my book.

So when I see Dave embracing the philosophies and practices of those in the “internet marketing” circles while maintaining his integrity but experiencing great success, it’s like “deja vu all over again”.

I’ve decided to start learning the ropes from these guys and utilize their practices in building my next business. I even have a new mentor lined up that I have confidence in and think is a pretty good guy.

As far as my religion is concerned, while I’m still a mainstream protestant (Episcopalian), it leaves me feeling a bit empty when I bother to attend. They may be adapting their politics quite nicely to the left, but they aren’t adapting their services to the souls of their congregants. So I take in a sermon from Joel Osteen every so often to take in a message that speaks to my heart and the life I live.

For business, we’ll see if my exploration into “internet marketing” practices pays off. I’ll be sure to let you know.

My desk is clean and neat. Everthing I need to find, I can find within seconds. Everything has its place.

The bills are paid. The house is neat. The bed is made.

I’ve done all my Christmas shopping and there are three whole days left before Christmas. I haven’t wrapped them all yet, but I have a little elf (my step-daughter, Elinor) who has volunteered for the task. Bottom line, I’m prepared for Christmas.

My emails are pretty much under control. The spam lies waiting for deletion in the appropriate folder. Again, I can find pretty much anything I need to on my Mac in a matter of seconds.

And I am miserable.

Why would that be? Isn’t this the ideal state we all seek to achieve in life? Aren’t we all buying books, organizers and attending seminars to learn how we can create a neat and orderly existence for ourselves?

I don’t know about you, but for me this is disastrous.

I like to be more busy. To have multiple things going on at the same time. I like to be planning for big things that I am not possibly prepared to do because I WANT to do them. I like having to rush from one thing to the next, barely making it there on time (but never late… I hate being late).

My problem is that I put all my eggs into one basket without a backup plan, and now I’m in planning and preparation mode but at a time of the year where it’s extremely difficult to be in execution mode.

But this too shall pass.

I will return to my beloved days of a messy desk, with piles of paper I haven’t gotten to yet. With business cards unprocessed that will probably never be databased, but used when I have to reach that person.

I will return to my messy, disorganized email inbox with dozens of unresponded to emails. To having to spend open time on a Sunday afternoon weeding through my email discerning what’s important, what’s not and acting upon what is.

My goal for 2007 is to return to the Andy of old: spacy and forgetful, yes, disorganized, yes, but somehow despite all the chaos, pulling it off. Making things happen.

So you might have thought I was going to review “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - how crammed closets, cluttered offices and on-the-fly-planning make the world a better place” since I have the book cover at the top of this missive for today.

Fact is, I’ve glanced through it. Read the opening pages. I like what I’ve seen thus far. But I haven’t read the book.

But it looks fabulous. I think I’m going to like it and plan on reading it over the holidays.

So if you, like me, are a closet disorganized person (or a person with a disorganized closet), you might want to order a copy from Amazon and do the same. It might be a great way to bide your time through the holidays and feel a little better about yourself while surrounded by wadded up Christmas wrapping, uneaten fruitcake and kids zoned out in front of the TV because they can’t figure out anything else to do with their time.

And smile despite it all. We slobs are not so bad.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Andy

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of an old friend, the mother of one of my daughter’s closest friends. She died of a form of Mad Cow’s Disease. She had been a world traveler and took in the life and gusto and good food of all the places she visited with great enthusiasm. Whatever it was that caused it, doctors say, may have been dormant in her system for as long as 20 years. When it kicked in last spring, I went and visited her and her husband in her home, where I found her in a semi-comatose state, drool flowing from her mouth, jaw hanging open, hands tightly clenched and her body well on its way to a permanent fetal position. She suffered and lingered in that state — this vivacious lover of life — until last Sunday, when by God’s grace and mercy she finally passed on to the next frontier. When I was told the news, all I could say was “God Bless her”. I hated to see someone suffer like that.

So as you can imagine, her funeral was a somber affair. Yes, we celebrated the life we shared with Maire, but we deeply mourned the suffering she had to endure to the end. While sad that she was dead, we were all deeply grateful for the end of her suffering.

The funeral, a combined Unitarian/Episcopal service was admittedly a little long, but every element seemed to capture just perfectly the essence of Maire and the message she would want to convey to us, her surviving family and friends.

As the eulogy got underway, I heard a “beep beep beep beep” going on directly behind me. Confused, I turned around. There I saw a woman busily hacking away at her CrackBerry, no doubt feeling so indispensible to the person on the other end, that she had to CrackBerry her in the midst of an old friend’s funeral.

I gave her an annoyed look, which she ignored and continued on her way, until I heard the familiar “silent vibe” sound on another CrackBerry.

I turned around, only to see that the woman sitting next to her had HER CrackBerry out. She was reading her message and looked at the original culprit, clearly a friend or associate and nodded in recognition.

So instead of leaning over and gently whispering into her friend’s ear, CrackBerry addict number 1 found it necessary to message her friend during their friend’s funeral.

If it wouldn’t have created a scene, I swear to God I would have grabbed that CrackBerry out of her hand and slammed it into the ground with such force that it would be splattered into a zillion pieces.

So I turned back around, after another annoyed look at Culprit number 2, which again was completely ignored.

A minute later, Culprit number one proceeded to open up one of those hard candies with noisy plastic wrappers, popping it in her mouth and loudly chewing and sucking on it.

I was beyond disgust and did my best to just breathe and refocus on the eulogy, which turned out to be a good one for Maire.

So what’s with you Crackberry addicts?

Last month, I went to my son’s “Biography Day” at his school wherein each of the children, dressed in costume, made a presentation about the person whose biography they read (my son was Steve Jobs, but I digress… he did a great job cloning Job’s presentation style). While this was going on, there was a busy executive in a suit kind of a guy sitting there with attache open and CrackBerry in full swing as he messaged and emailed his way through all the presentations, right up until his little girl presented — during which he politely set his Crackberry aside, closed his attache and listened, and after which he stood up and left the room, his obligation fulfilled. No doubt his daughter was pleased that he at least showed up, though I would say he was not present, if you know what I mean.

I’ve seen guys out on dates with their beautiful wives and/or girlfriends ignoring them as they message away on their CrackBerry, oblivious to the beautiful (their appearance doesn’t matter, just the fact that they obviously spent time gussying themselves up for the occasion) woman across from them. And to be fair, I’ve seen women do the same thing, but less so.

I can’t sit in a theatre anymore without seeing teenagers busily messaging their friends, wherever they may be, throughout the movie, and then having to ask their friend next to them — in a loud voice — what they missed.

What the f*ck has happened to us? Can’t we shut off our CrackBerrys and cell phones for a short while and be present while we’re attending special occasions in our life? Do we feel that inadequate that we have to be indispensable to whomever may be on the other end?

I almost got a CrackBerry once because I thought it had a cool feature set (and it definitely does), but seeing what I do on a daily basis with CrackBerry addiction, I decided not to join the brainless drones who throw courtesy and civility out the window in order to enslave themselves to this evil little device.

OK, that feels better. I’ve got it off my chest.

Have a great weekend, folks… and if you’re a CrackBerry addict, take a break and enjoy the life around you.

I have spent the past two evenings curled up reading The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil. I’ve known Debbie for a long time, harking back to when she wrote for us at ClickZ, so it was good to see an old pal doing well and getting published.

The Corporate Blogging Book is for the people the title implies it is for: those who work for corporations who are thinking of getting into blogging or just now getting into it. Debbie’s writing is clear, direct and to the point and in this book she covers everything a corporate blogger would need to know.

I especially enjoyed the chapter where she took on the “fear of blogging” issue (”Will there be controversy? Will I get fired for what I say on my blog?”) head on. She recommends, to borrow a phrase from another book, you “feel the fear and do it anyway”. Don’t let fear get in the way of your opening up communications and conversation with your customers via this powerful medium.

So if you are a corporate blogger or even a wannabe, do yourself a favor and head over to Amazon and buy a copy.

You’ll learn a lot and be ready and all stoked up to start a new blog in just a few week’s time… A nice way to start out the new year.

Click To Play

Some of you may remember that I did an interview for ZBIZ.TV with Robert Glazer at ReferralMonitor.com back in September (see video above). Well, I’m proud to say that Robert is stepping ReferralMonitor up a notch and getting his message out through holding a free teleseminar.

If it looks like something you’d like to attend, I hope you will. They’ve got a great service over there at ReferralMonitor. — Andy

Teleseminar Topic:

How to build and grow a business without marketing

If almost all your business is generated from referrals then why don’t you have a referral generating strategy? Why leave the cornerstone of your lead generation to chance?

This Friday, December 8, at 1pm EST we will be presenting a teleseminar on how to build a referral strategy that is proven to triple or quadruple the amount of leads and sales you are currently generating. This one hour lunchtime seminar will also include a special announcement on how a select group on the call will be chosen for a complimentary consulting and strategy session valued at $500.

We will also answer your specific referral marketing questions if you who send us your questions before the teleseminar to the email address at the bottom of this announcement.

What will the teleseminar cover?

For most business owners and marketers the immediate challenge is to find clients willing to use their services without an extended delay between purchases. In other words, they don’t have much time to spend on a long sales cycle. They need a pipeline full of prospects even when they are busy dealing with the work at hand. For smaller businesses waiting 3 – 6 months between deals may be too long. The problem is almost all companies are using marginal strategies that are not going to return anything tangible

Here are some of the things we will be discussing on Friday’s call:

Identifying and tracking your best referral sources

How to develop a constant stream of referrals without paying anyone

How to make referrals a condition of doing business

The biggest mistakes businesses make and how to avoid making them

How to turn your customers into salespeople

Shortcuts to generating referrals in a week or less

Building ‘Power Partner’ relationships that will ensure high quality referrals

The best gift and reward ideas for almost any business and client profile

Why referral marketing is the most profitable, quickest, and smartest strategy for you

Referral marketing examples from real world businesses

How can you register?

To register for this teleseminar and also be eligible for the free referral marketing package valued at $500 please email richard@referralmonitor.com and include your name and any questions you want answered on the call. The teleseminar number will be emailed to you before the start of the call. We’ve only reserved 100 seats for the call so space will be limited.

Yours Truly,
Richard