Erich Stauffer

Tag: Networking

  • Why I’m Going to Mixwest 2014

    Mixwest is an Indianapolis marketing, design, and technology convention with speakers and multi-track sessions spread out over two days: July 31-August 1, 2014. I’m going to meet new people and see old friends.

    Mixwest 2014

    I first went to Mixwest in 2011 when it was called “Blog Indiana“. Half of all of the people I follow on Twitter I met at that conference and I continue to keep in touch with them today. It’s any not different than many other conferences you might find in New York, Vegas, Austin, or San Francisco, it’s just that it’s in the Midwest, which makes it closer to me. I’m from around here, but it’s close enough that if you really wanted to come you could drive it in a day from Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, or Kentucky.

    The #Mixwest14 conference has a keynote speaker that opens each day, then there is breakout sessions, lunch, and an evening big speaker again. The first year they had Jay Baer, who I didn’t know of at the time, but have since realized is a pretty big deal in the social world. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, which is an hour south of Indianapolis.

    You can learn more about the conference on Twitter @mixwest and can follow all of the speakers on the unofficial Mixwest 2014 Speaker Twitter list. If you’re looking to socialize with the tech entrepreneurs, social media pros, and freelance writers around Indianapolis, this is the place to do it.

  • Nothing Man – How to Self-Identify Yourself

    What do you do?

    This question terrifies me. What do you do? How am I supposed to answer that?

    I’m assuming you’d like to know where I work or what I do at my job. How would you like me to answer that?

    I could tell you that I have a “day job” working IT and do full-time consulting on the side. This answer is rarely satisfying because to them (and me), IT means so many things and no one really knows what consultants do.

    One day I attempted to record everything I actually do for people rather than use labels like “IT guy”, “web designer”, or “business consultant.” What I found that I was more like an operator or information repository. I would get requests and spit back results or information. I’m a human Github.

    So you’re at a networking event or a nice dinner party and the person across from you asks you what you do. What do you say?

    I have a friend that always starts off by talking about his family. He says, “I have a wife and five kids, with another one on the way.” Only then does he go into what he does during the day, and even then, he does not usually mention the actual business name.

    In the movie, Anger Management, Jack Nicholson’s character asks Adam Sandler’s character, “Who are you?”

    Sandler’s character starts off by stating his position and the company he works for, but is quickly interrupted by Nicholson’s character who again asks, for him to tell “Who you are.”

    Sandler then says he’s “a pretty good guy, likes to play tennis…” to which Nicholson says, “Not your hobbies, tell us who you are.”

    Sandler can’t come up with a good answer so he asks other people in the room to tell him who he is. Everyone laughs.

    Sandler then retries by talking about how he’s “a nice guy, easy going” to which Nicholson says, “You’re describing your personality. We want to know who you are.”

    Finally, Sandler admits he doesn’t know how to respond. I’ve been there.

    I’m the first to admit I don’t know how to describe myself. Often times I will pour over data that I’ve created (blog posts, tweets, emails) just to get a sense of who I am. I still don’t know.

    I help organizations categorize products, people, and information, but I don’t know how to categorize myself. Maybe that’s because I’m a person and not a blog post.

    People are complicated. That’s not new information. We are capable of doing a lot of things, but from another person’s perspective, it’s easier to remember someone else for one specific thing. This is called “shoeboxing” or ‘filling that slot in your brain’.

    To some clients I’m their “IT guy”. To others I’m their “web guy”. To my children, I’m their “Daddy”. To my parents, I’m their “son”. The roles I play are contextual based on where I am and what I’m doing, which is why it’s so hard to pick just one thing when someone asks, “What do you do?”

    There is a saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” My brother says this. I used to, but I’ve since learned that it’s good to be good at something.

    In Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, he talks about how it was valuable for him to know how to do “everything” so that anytime he was able to take advantage of a situation, he could. This is an extreme example, but not too different from what liberal arts colleges espouse about getting a well-rounded education.

    Let me spin this positive.

    People who used to be good at a lot of things were called “renaissance men”, which is less commonly known as “polymaths” – someone who “spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.”

    Polymaths are adroit, they have skill, cleverness, or resourcefulness in handling a variety of situations. Today we might call that “emotional intelligence”, but it’s more than that. It’s purposeful, deliberate practice from someone with perseverance and grit.

    When someone says they are good at a lot of things, but the master of none, what they’re really saying is that they’re adaptable and a problem solver.

    The world is changing pretty fast. It may not be such a good idea to become an expert in any one thing so as not to have that thing go away in a short amount of time – far better to learn how to always be adding value.

    The next time someone asks me what I do, I’ll say, “Nothing, man.” Because I do whatever people ask me to do. That’s how I add value.

    Update 3/10/2014:

    I just watched The Lego Movie and although I am unable to find a transcript of Emmett’s speech to the Master Builders, in general he says something like ‘There is nothing special about me.’ It made me think of this post. He’s Nothing Man, too – and yet he’s able to use this as a strength – and save the world. Maybe I can too. 🙂

  • The Value of Conferences and Trade Shows

    Mike McDerment, the founder of Freshbooks, recently wrote a post titled How I Earned A Lot More on Projects by Changing My Pricing Strategy in which he talks about how he used to be a web designer (only) and it was his frustration with invoicing that moved him to create Freshbooks, which is online accounting and invoicing software for small business owners. McDerment recently released a free ebook that is similar to the Brennan Dunn’s Double Your Freelancing Rate book called, Breaking the Time Barrier: How to Unlock Your True Earning Potential. McDerment will be speaking in Indianapolis at MixWest (formerly Blog Indiana) August 7-9th, 2013, which reminded me of the value of conferences and trade shows to your business.

    I last attended Blog Indiana in 2011 and have since wrote about it in My Local Heroes, Mesh Networking, and Networking Indianapolis. It’s also how I know most of the people I now know on Twitter. In other words, it was very impactful to me and part of the reason I decided to attend The Combine that same year in Bloomington, Indiana. People I met at Blog Indiana and The Combine I later ran into at Verge in Indianapolis, at the Lean Startup Circle, and at Agile Indy. I was starting to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals, which has intrinsic value.

    Vishen Lakhiani, founder of Mind Valley, talks about how attending conferences changed his company and allowed it to grow. Pat Flynn, owner of Smart Passive Income, talks about how he met one of his best friends and business partners at a conference. In Terry Lin’s Build My Online Store podcast #45, Matt Kowalak talks about how attending trade shows is a critical part of the marketing of his business.
    The bottom line is that while it can cost a lot of money to go to conferences, there is a lot of value in going to conferences. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is powerful, and it can change your business. For encouragement, collaboriation, or learning from others who have paved the way before you, meetups, conferences, and tradeshows can help you become a success.

    Know you can succeed, and you will.

  • Business Cards vs Email Marketing

    I recently sent a “soapbox” email to a couple of friends about how I’ve felt recently about business cards in relation to networking and building up your business through local interactions. I’m currently in the process of building up my business consulting business again and I’ve been thinking a lot about networking I did in 2012 and how I want to market myself in 2014.

    Is it just me or is the act of asking for someone’s business card the equivalent of “I just want to end this conversation and never talk to you again”?

    I get asked for my business card [a lot?] and it’s almost always from someone who does not want to do business with me, but wants to either spy on me remotely later or end the conversation.

    What are some positive interactions from potential customers?

    They seek me out. They call me. They email me. If I don’t write back, they email me again or they call me. No business cards are involved. They’ve heard about me from someone else. It’s a referral thing.

    So how do you get referrals?

    Mostly by doing great work that’s shareworthy. Add a ton of value, show ROI, or other thrilling things that makes someone want to share your work with other people. Other than that, it’s a matter of showing up.

    Email Marketing vs. Network Marketing

    I brought this up while reading about networking meetings in the book, Double Your Freelancing Rate, which I did a lot of last year and had very, very limited success. The greatest success was from simply staying in contact (via email) with existing clients, meeting their needs, and being referred to others by those existing clients. I’m looking to do more of that, but not sure exactly how. That’s why I’m reading the book and looking to other experts in my field for help/feedback.

    In reply to this email, my friend wrote this about his graphic design business:

    I can see that I’m getting local referrals on the basis of the work that I’ve done…For a designer, it is important to have a business card because that is likely the first chance (and maybe the last chance if you don’t have one) that they will have to see your work. They may not get a chance to sit in front of a screen before they make a decision about whether or not to work with you. I’ve always had positive interactions around my cards because they are premium paper and thickness, they are slightly larger than your standard US business card, and they prominently feature my branding (pixel perfect at 300ppi) on the front and a playful, full-bleed image on the back. I think if I had a vanilla business card, it wouldn’t be much of a boon and it would probably hurt me (especially if it were a Vistaprint template card). I also get asked for my card from friends/acquaintances that aren’t looking for design services, but want to share with someone they know or a business owner (to help me or them out).

    Good points. And I like how he was pitching his design services right into his reply. Nicely done.

    Email marketing is one goal I’ve had to start doing more of in 2013 and it will continue into 2014. KissMetrics recently posted 7 Overlooked but Critically Important Details of Profitable Email Marketing in which they mention how Nathan Barry, a web designer, launched an eBook that made $12,000 in sales in 24hrs and went on to make over $85,000 in its first year (what they don’t mention is the 10,000 hours of work he had in his life leading up to that point). But seriously, I’m not even talking about product launches or information products here, I’m talking about communicating with your customers – decent human-like things you could be doing to let them know you’re not dead. Your competitors are talking to them so you should be too. Hopefully this blog post helped someone take some action. Stop reading and start writing!

  • Stations: How Community Leads to Happiness

    As I sit here, alone, in my dark, home office, I want to share with you what I have learned about community and it’s role in work and happiness in my life.

    The Third Place

    Third Place

    Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, made the term “The third place,” popular in his book, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time, but the “third place” is actually a phrase coined by contemporary sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg postulated in 1990 that the third place is, “a public place where people gather for the social satisfaction that they can’t get from the first two domains of the home and the workplace.” Oldenburg argued that the availability of such gathering places in America was lacking. Schultz turned America’s ‘lack of place’ into a business opportunity encouraging loitering and turning Starbucks into that third place. In this post I will argue that their is a direct relationship between the number of third places and happiness (in life and work).

    Social Structure

    In Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell recounts the story of a town whose inhabitants rarely got sick. After a doctor named Wolf began looking into why, he “slowly realized was that the secret of Roseto wasn’t diet or exercise or genes or the region where Roseto was situated. It had to be the Roseto itself.” The town’s social structure had multiple generations living under one roof, the townspeople talked to one another on the street, they cooked together in each other’s backyards, they went to the same church, and had “twenty-two separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2000 people”. In short, the towns people were a community and they had places they could go to congregate and interact. It’s these ‘third’ places that I call Community Stations.

    Community Stations

    If you went to a public school your teacher may have setup your classroom into stations. If you were in first grade there may have been a station for reading books, a station for building blocks or puzzles, and another station to watch an aquarium or greenhouse. These were all places you could go, sub-sections within the larger classroom to hang out with people like you doing things like you. When you grew up you may have been assigned a “work” station at your job and bought a “play” station for your home. In the 1800’s whole towns were built up around “train” stations and now every corner has a “gas” station for our cars. Third places like Starbucks are a “coffee” station – and like the stations set up around the classroom, is one where like-minded people gather to talk and share what’s going on in their work and their community.

    Personal Community

    Your community is more than the 2 square miles around your home. It’s made up of the various types of community stations, the most important ones being your home, your work, the stores you visit, and your friend’s homes. Each station in your personal community is like a node on a network and like Facebook, the more friends you have, the better the experience. This network value is called the Network Effect. But unless you live in a college dorm or in a close-knit community like Roseto, you have to travel greater distances to these different stations. But the more stations you have, the greater the chance you will be able to interact with these stations and the greater the value of the community. This is why density matters and it’s why more communities are choosing to infill instead of building sprawl.

    Walkable Neighborhoods

    Alex Steffen talks about infill in communities being used to build denser communities, but there are already places like that: cities. I recently wrote about how people under 30 are moving into the cities and driving less, what Nathan Norris calls The Great Migration of the 21st Century. More and more people want to live in walkable neighborhoods, places where shopping, fun, and friends are all within walking distance. There is even a website dedicated to judging the walkability of a neighborhood. But you don’t have to live in a city to have a walkable neighborhood. Suburburban “sub-divisions” like these in the Indianapolis area can be specifically built to be walkable.

    Networking Indianapolis

    Indianapolis NetworkingIn my post about working in Indianapolis, I wrote about how on Thursdays I would start out at the local BNI meeting, then go to Subway where the local Sandwich artist would remember me and ask me about my business. After breakfast I’d head to Starbucks where I’d normally run into someone I know and begin working. At night I’d attend a meetup or go to a friends house before heading home. After going full-time on my own business one of the first things I noticed was how lonely I was working from home (like right now?). I wrote:

    When I worked for other companies I was around other people all day long. We had meetings. I sometimes got to go places on the company’s dime. Some of these times were good. Most of them were not noteworthy. However, once they were gone, I started to miss that in my life. Sure, I met with clients occasionally, but for the most part I stayed in my office at home. While my family is a joy to me, there is a certain need to go beyond that and meetups can help with that.

    Work Communities

    My wife used to work at a hospital with a man named Melvin whose job was to keep rooms stocked each day. He had worked at the hospital for many years and had developed a routine that involved starting out in the stock room and making rounds around the hospital, stopping to talk to various people in each location. These were his stations within the hospital and without them he would not have been as happy at his job. He needed the community that the stations provided him. As an IT and web consultant, my clients were scattered around the city of Indianapolis and it created many places I could go throughout the day. My clients became part of my community and added to my work enjoyment. It didn’t feel like work – it felt more like visiting a friend.

    Seeking Stations

    I live in Tipton, Indiana and there isn’t a whole lot to do here. There is no coffee shop and none of my friends live around here. There is a bowling alley, a movie theater, and several gas stations. My kids like walking to the gas station to get candy and occasionally I’ll walk to watch a movie, but the only place for me to go to ‘work’ is McDonald’s and Jim Dandy. One is depressing and the other won’t leave you alone. There is no place to ‘hang out’. It’s a walkable neighborhood, but where would I be walking to? I decided that there must be something to do here, it’s just that I don’t have the information as to what that is. That’s when I got the idea for Seektivity – an app that lets you share activities and events going on around you – kind of like a Foursquare for activities instead of places. A lot of my friends thought it was a good idea. Shoutt has since come out with something similar, but it adds a ‘borrowing/lending’ feature. I shoutted in Tipton, but so far there has been no one listening (if you live in Tipton, give me a shout out on Twitter).

    I take a drink of my coffee and get a text from a customer. The room seems brighter now. I feel like I’m a part of a community – and for a second I am happy.

    If you enjoyed this post, you might also like, How to Work a Life of Purpose.

  • Mesh Networking

    In one of my last posts about networking in Indianapolis, Jeremy Houchens of Pro Media Publishing said, “Thanks for including the links to the local events!”, which when juxtaposed against a recent comment from Ashley Hardy of ANH Media about how, “You know all the networking events in Indianapolis”, and it made me wonder if I really had become a source for Indianapolis networking knowledge.

    Jeremy, Ashley, and I are all business owners with loose affiliations and referral partners that allow us to sustain and grow without the burden of an employee/partnership relationship. This is more than just the gig economy‘s freelancers who are in the business of creating jobs for themselves. This is about building bigger companies with less employees. It’s The Startup of You without the Long Hallway. It’s Mesh Networking.

    Now I know ‘mesh networking’ is already a term for interconnected devices who can communicate to use each other as nodes on a network, but that’s exactly what I’m suggesting these new types of solopreneur businesses are. The business owners are the ‘devices’ and through each other, they find work.

    3 Ways you Know You’re a Mesh Networker

    1. You’re a power connector – a power connector connects two people who didn’t previously know each other, thereby helping two people at once. Mesh networkers need to be power connectors in order to leverage their networking time.

    2. You’re building a business, not a job for yourself – like Steven Covey, you begin with the end in mind and that end does not include you being in the employee corner of the Cash Flow Quadrant for long. Your end goal is lower-right and you’re moving there as fast as possible.

    3. You’re not interested in partnerships and employees right away – you’re more interested in finding the right referral partners who can funnel business to you while you’re funneling business to them. It’s all about strategic partnerships and selling first.

    7 Indianapolis Networking Events You May Not Have Heard Of

    1. Power Circle Network – PCN is a free version of Rainmakers and BNI-type networking that meets weekly on the north side in Carmel, Westfield, and Noblesville; on the east side in Broad Ripple, Cumberland, Greenfield, and New Palestine; on the south side in Greenwood, Southport, Beech Grove, and Franklin; and on the west side in Avon and at Initech Park.

    2. Linking Indiana – a Facebook and Smaller Indiana group that holds monthly networking events with a training session – usually with a speaker, but sometimes simply fun exercises like “speed networking”. In the past the events have been at the Rathskeller downtown, but they could be anywhere in the future so sign up for the Facebook group to stay informed.

    3. Meetup.com – after 9/11 the founders wanted to use the Internet to help people meet together in person around topics they loved or found interesting. It just so happens that meetups (as they are called) can also be used to network with other like-minded individuals. I currently run a meetup on Indianapolis Marketing. Most meetups are free. Verge Indy is currently the biggest meetup in Indianapolis.

    4. BNI Indiana – Business Networking International is a networking group that meets weekly in groups all around the Greater Indianapolis area. It’s a paid membership group, but this and the strict attendance rules means the members are more likely to come. Seeing the same people week after week leads to trust and more referrals. You can attend each BNI meeting twice for free to try them out.

    5. Glazer Kennedy Insider’s Circle Indianapolis aka “No BS Indy” – you won’t see this billed as a networking group, because it’s not – but anytime you get a room full of business owners in one place, networking is bound to happen. Scott Manning teaches business owners how to grow their business as fast as possible and charges them for this information, but you can go twice for free.

    6. Blog Indiana – this conference is an annual event for bloggers and Internet marketers hosted by Noah Coffey and Shawn Plew. It’s a chance to meet the big players in the business like Douglas Karr, Erik Deckers, or Tricia Meyer. It’s also a chance to meet up-and-comers like Ben Risinger who built DoItIndy with Scott Tolin and just recently founded Somnium Media with Stephanie Eppich Daily and Susan Decker. It’s a two-day event.

    7. The Combine – this conference is also an annual event for startups, which is sponsored by, among others, Sproutbox. Like Blog Indiana, The Combine is a two-day event, but it’s in Bloomington spread over the IU campus. This is where I saw Merlin Mann speak and I met Cedric Savarese, the founder of Form Assembly, and up-and-comer Nick Tippman, both of whom I invited to Verge Indy (’cause I’m a mesh networker).

  • Indianapolis Networking with BNI and Rainmakers

    Yesterday, I wrote about attending an Indianapolis networking group called Linking Indiana, but recently I have joined both BNI (Business Networking International) and Rainmakers.

    I go to the BNI in Carmel, Indiana called “Network Masters”. It’s a referral group where only one person from each professional specialty is allowed. This means that there can’t be two web designers in a group, for example. They call it “exclusivity” and it helps you to be “the guy” for your particular industry or specialty.

    BNI is also strict on attendance, meaning that you have to either attend every meeting or find a substitute. You’re only allowed a limited amount of absences per year, but this can be a good thing because you know people are actually going to be there to hear what you have to say. The point is to learn about each other’s businesses so you can be a good referral partner when you’re out working in your field.

    Rainmakers is different than BNI in that its events aren’t required, but its “power circle” meetings are. The power circle meetings act more like BNI meetings because their seats are exclusive, meaning you can have only one type of profession in each meeting. The difference in power circles to BNI is that power circles are supposed to be made up of service professionals who naturally refer to each other, making the group potentially more effective than a general BNI group.

    Anyone can invite visitors to a BNI meeting or a Rainmakers event, but visitors can only attend twice before having to sign up as a member. BNI and Rainmakers are comparable in price per year and both have their advantages. If you’re interested in attending one, but don’t want to go alone, contact me and we’ll see if we can go to an event together.

  • Linking Indiana

    I recently attended a Linking Indiana event where Blake of Blaze Communications gave a presentation on personal branding. Personal branding is to branding what you are to your organization. In other words, if branding is the reputation for your business, then personal branding is your reputation.

    It was raining in Indianapolis and yet the light from the sun was still shining through the clouds, which made for some interesting views of the city. There were also some interesting views discussed after Blake’s presentation when we all sat around discussing possibilities for our personal brands. My favorite was of the IT guy who described his business as fitting like a glove.

  • How I Made it as an Entrepreneur

    I got this email from an old friend today and wanted to post my reply to him:

    So how are things at Watershawl these days? You still able to make a living off of it all? I’m pretty anxious to hear all about what you’ve got going on these days. It seems like you’ve been away for a while now… it was sink or swim time and you swam!

    I’ve got that itch again. You know the one where I want to make money my way. I won’t lie they really take care of me there, and I’m learning tons every single day, but I’m starting to read blogs about making money from home and what not again. And it reminded me that I haven’t checked in with you for a while on where you’re at.

    Take Care,

    Jake

    My experience at Watershawl can best be described by the attached picture, but yes, I’m able to make a living off of it. The issues I have are not unique to my business though and that’s cash-flow (you know, the stuff the Cash Management guys talk about all the time). What that means is that although I make enough over time, it doesn’t always come in at the same rate I need it to go out for bills. In other words, it averages out alright, but isn’t always timed right. For example, this month I’m scheduled to make a $400 profit over my bills (something that never hardly happened when I had a normal job), but right now I don’t have anything. It’s like that pretty much every month and that’s because I didn’t have a savings account (and still don’t).

    I don’t think the itch to leave will ever really go away (unless you die inside), but there are ways to test the waters before you jump in. First of all, start thinking of your job as your biggest client and try to stop ‘expecting’ a paycheck and start trying to ‘earn’ a paycheck. This will put you in the mindset you’ll need when dealing with clients outside of a employee relationship. When I left I had 1 boss, but now I have over 20 (the number of current clients). My time is not my own. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now. I have to work for them just like I had to work for my old job. The difference is that if I work more, I get more (and I can charge more). I also get to sleep in and do whatever I want. 🙂

    My recommendation to you would be to take advantage of where you’re at and LISTEN to what people are saying. What I mean by this is if you can start to hear what people’s problems are, stuff they complain about, and/or what their pain points are, that’s the beginning of discovering a product, service, or business that you could start in order to solve that need. You’re in a better position in some ways than I am for finding out that information. I would love to find out what problems commercial loan officers have or what problems their clients have. If you can find a problem that you can solve + a customer that is both willing and able to pay for that solution, you have a business idea.

    The key is to iterate your business idea until you have what’s called a product/market fit. Eric Ries talks about this in his book, Lean Startups, but you can also read Steve Blank‘s work on it. They’ve worked together so they have similar ideas. But basically, the premise is to 1) discover a problem 2) hypothesize a solution 3) interview potential customers about the solution 4) refine the solution. Once you get to a product that the customer would be MAD at you if you took away from them, you have a product/market fit and then you get funding and build like crazy. There are other subtle variations (like starting with a product instead of a customer), but being customer-centric in everything you do will pay dividends.

    One idea that I don’t mind sharing with you is a “LED light bulb replacement service” where you go to a company like a bank and say, “I’d like to save you 40% off your lighting bill and would be happy to show you how it works by converting one of your branches to LED lighting at cost – if you like it, we’ll do the rest of your branches too, if not, we’ll go on our way and thank you for your time.” Essentially, you’re going in, finding out how many bulbs they have, estimating the cost upfront and the cost savings, and then swapping them out in one day. You can even do a buy-back on existing fluorescent light bulbs that you can either trash or sell to someone else.

    A typical day for me is waking up around 8, checking my email for emergency work, working on some projects for customers (usually web edits), reading up on subjects in my field, visit a customer at their location or at a restaurant for a meeting, attend a networking meeting or meetup at night, and then in bed by midnight. I recently joined a networking group called BNI and am active on Meetup.com. I run my own group called Indianapolis Marketing and attend several others as well as Tech Point meetings, which are put on by a partnership with the State of Indiana. I use blogging to content market online, but that’s less successful than in-person networking for me. I’d be interested in hearing what you’re working on at work or in your ‘spare time’.