Archive for the ‘Blog Posts’ Category

Reflections from B-School Reunion

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Was delighted to be in NYC last weekend (okay I could have done without the monsoon weather!)–hard to believe I graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business twenty years ago. Fascinating to catch up with my former classmates and to hear about their various journeys and career paths. My most interesting observation (other than the fact that 90% of the men have lost most of the hair on top of their heads) was about where my fellow alums are working nowadays.

Back in ’91, everyone lined up for the on-campus recruiting interviews with the biggest of the big companies—Proctor& Gamble, Bristol-Myers/Squibb, Merck, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and the usual list of big financial firms. Read those name badges today and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Fortune 100 company. Many of us are self-employed coaches and consultants (plus a bunch of moms choosing to stay home with their kids for now)…but the vast majority work at smaller, more entrepreneurial-type firms, digital marketing companies, turnaround situations, scrappy up and comer-type financial players, hedge-funds, etc.

Have we changed? Has the job market changed? Both? Are the young MBAs still going to the big firms for their post-school jobs and then leaving? Or are the big companies not valuing MBAs? Of course, each of us made our own employment decisions individually, but the overall trend was striking.

What do you think?

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

Crazy Potential Website Building Client

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Guest blogger today, my colleague and former business partner Kevin McGillivray. This is his “near verbatim” transcript of a phone conversation with a prospective client. So funny I wanted to share it!

Here’s a call I just had. Thought you might enjoy it.
It’s long but worth it.
I don’t know how this woman got my info but she left me an almost incoherent voicemail yesterday. She called again today. I missed her and called her back.

Me: Hi, my name is Kevin. You left me a message and want to talk about a web site?

Woman: Well I don’t really have ti… I’ve got… Well, okay. I guess we can talk.

Me: Great. So, it sounded like you had some questions about a web site for your business? What does your business do?

Woman: I have some questions about the web.

Me: Okay, what’s the name of your business.

Woman: Is web sites all you do?

Me: No, I’m a web developer and a marketing consultant also.

Woman: …

Me: I build web sites, help clients create and send email marketing, build software applications and…

Woman: (Interrupts) What’s email marketing?

Me: Basically it’s sending email messages to your clients and colleagues to promote your business. Does your business…

Woman: (Interrupts) I want to know about Google.

Me: Okay, what do you…

Woman: (Interrupts) When you go to Google how does stuff get on there?

Me: Well, Google reads your web site and catalogs all that information…

Woman: (Interrupts) No, I’m not talking about Google. I’m talking about all the text.

Me: Um…do you mean when you type something into Google and they show you search results for that term?

Woman: No, I’m talking about the text you see. The TEXT!

Me: What text are you talking about?

Woman: (Getting frustrated) The text! The text you see there.

Me: … What does the text look like?

Woman: (More frustrated) It’s text about people! Like if you type in a name and it shows you text about that person. How does that text get there?

Me: Well, that’s not actually Google’s information. The text could be from any number of web sites that Google has searched.

Woman: (Still more frustrated) No! I’m asking about the text. How does the text about the person get there. Like paragraphs of text about a person.

Me: Well, without seeing exactly what you’re talking about, I’m not sure I could say.

Woman: (Obviously annoyed) It’s the text you see about a person. The text!

Me: I really can’t say. I’m not sure what text you’re seeing but it could have gotten on the web in any number of ways. I’d have to see it to say how it happened.

Woman: (Getting pissed) You don’t know what you’re talking about!

Me: Hm, I’d like to help you but you’re not describing what you’re seeing very well so I can’t say.

Woman: (Grunts. Very frustrated.) I’ve got to call you back. I’ve got a *click*

Me: (Stunned silence. Puts on tinfoil hat.)

You just can’t make this stuff up.  Thanks for sharing, Kevin!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

I finally added a Facebook Fan Page

Thursday, December 23rd, 2010

I don’t think they even call it a Fan page anymore. Just a Page. Then you have to get people to “like” you. Will this be a giant leap forward in my business? Who knows? But since I fancy myself an expert on small business and web marketing, I thought this was long overdue. Click LIKE and add me!

Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

Good luck to Advice Guru Bette Alkazian!

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

My colleague and friend Bette Alkazian of Balanced Parenting is one of the ten finalists for Good Morning America’s Search for the Next Advice Guru. I couldn’t be happier for her and wish her luck! If you haven’t checked out her sample advice (and voted for it, of course) please check her out and vote accordingly! CLICK HERE.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

The best thing about satellite radio…

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Is two continuous channels of holiday music!  Yes, this nice Jewish girl has always had a thing for Christmas music, both the classic Burl Ives type stuff as well as the new Santa Baby kind of stuff.  It just makes me happy for one month of the year.  I’ve even been known to subject my fitness classes to step music just for the holidays.  But since I’m not teaching right now, my car radio has become my best friend.  Traditional Classics or Holly.  I arrive everywhere humming goofy music and smiling.

Tags: ,
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

Are holiday cards defunct?

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

We had a professional photographer come out to the house a few weeks back to shoot our little family photo (particularly momentous for the removal of my teenager’s braces!).  I went to upload the photos to one of those card-making sites when I paused.  And I thought:  most of the families on my holiday list are also my Facebook friends.  Why not just post the photos there?  I have never been one of those long annual family letter writers (though don’t get me wrong, I adore getting them from those brave souls who do venture to write them!)  Is it worthwhile to just send a photo of my little family with some holiday/New Year greetings?  Is it a waste of time and money (and environmentally unsound?)  Or is it a welcome tradition that people would miss if I didn’t do it?  Editor’s note:  we did not send cards last year because we’d just had our daughter’ bat mitzvah and had been in touch with all the important people already.  So do I break the chain and just not bother?  Do people still like getting them?

Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

The Power of Masterminding

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Back in California for a short, extremely packed week of friends, family and work I was able to get my old Mastermind group together for one of their regular monthly breakfasts today.

I was the initiator of this group 18 or so months ago and I am pleased (though somewhat saddened) that they continue strong without me. In my few months away I had really missed their valued input and ideas. These smart, trusted business people are all out pursuing their own ventures but for this one meeting per month, they can be the source of honest feedback and real listening that is so hard to get any other way. Because we all know each other so well, there’s none of that introduction, networking stuff that inevitably takes place at most “networking” meetings. These sessions get right down to brass tacks…how is it going and how can we help you?

I did a webinar for Practice Pay Solutions eUniversity last week with colleague Cheri Ruskus last week where she talked about her specialized sort of Mastermind groups for women called Victory Circles. (Catch the video here if you want to watch for yourself.) Cheri’s groups focus on one of Napoleon Hill’s Mastermind Principles and have a real structure and accountability element built in.  Worth checking out.

If you are feeling isolated in your small business, consider Masterminding.  I highly recommend it and want to publicly thank Bill, Bette, Michelle and Tracie for being my Masterminds!

Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

What is with all that spam?

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Just went to comb through my blog comments and I have to ask…does every blogger have to deal with hundreds of spam contributions?  In the latest batch, I found several in Hebrew (which I can assure you I cannot read), promos for Acai berries, student loans, adult products of many sorts, Internet money-making schemes, web design programs, sunglasses and one to Free The Seals.  Is there an advisor somewhere that tells people to generate all these bogus posts in hopes that they will slip by the blog author and get posted so they’ll get more traction for their own products and programs?  Almost all of them are gibberish, many of them identical gibberish.  I have to assume they are not being submitted by individuals who actually read and process the content of the website or blog because there is absolutely no reference to the topics I talk about.  Strange stuff.  Are there real people out there?  Hellooooo?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Blog Posts | 3 Comments »

Good to meet you. Where did you go to school?

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Finally getting myself out and about in Baltimore and meeting people—business meetings, networking, etc…plus just getting to know the neighbors, having my cousins over for a barbecue.  I am just starting to understand the culture of this place:  when someone asks where you went to school, they mean your high school.  Yes, your high school.  Baltimore folks make sense of who you are by relating it to what prep school you went to.  Since I didn’t grow up here, they have to make do with proxies:  my dad went to City College (which apparently means smart working-class boy who wants to make something of himself) and my daughter is starting at The Friends School (which seems to indicate respectful, socially responsible but still smart).  She applied and also got into The Park School (lefty/liberal) and Bryn Mawr (all-girls, terribly exclusive, dahling) and when she picked Friends we had no idea the bigger implications of it as a social statement.  This is a whole new world to me.  Everywhere else I have lived had much more transient populations (Boston, New York, Southern California) and no one shared enough history for this kind of thing to make sense.  Is this high school as social statement thing common elsewhere or is it just a Baltimore thing?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

Coach, Consultant, Advisor?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The most recent issue of Choice magazine (published by my buddy Garry Schleifer, focused on coaches and the coaching industry) focused on the concept of coach vs. consultant.  Got me thinking about which I am.  I call myself a Business Coach, but it is probably more accurate to say that I am a Small Business Consultant.   Or maybe an Advisor.  Something that is a hybrid, but probably leaning toward consulting.

A very fine line, but my understanding of the difference is that a coach does not offer solutions to problems, but instead encourages the clients to find answers on their own.

Seems to me that my clients want my actual help and insight into solving the problems by using my creativity and business knowledge and acumen so they can leapfrog ahead.  For entrepreneurs it can be  costly and time-consuming to muddle through until they reach the Aha Moments.  If the person they are paying to help them can get them where they want to go faster…why wouldn’t they want that help?

I totally get that in a Life Coaching type of situation, you must reach your own conclusions and figure out how to navigate personal issues and human relationships yourself…so coaching makes perfect sense in that context.  But business is about making money.  (Isn’t it?!)  So there are principles and proven strategies that an entrepreneur can implement without reinventing wheels.

Maybe it’s time to rebrand as a Consultant/Advisor?

Tags:
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »