FEED YOUR DATABASE.

Great blogs from my boss/friend/fellow blogger…Donato Diorio.

http://www.idonato.com/2008/07/21/lions-and-idiots-donatos-rules-for-emailing-recipient-lists/

http://www.idonato.com/2008/07/08/linkedin-quality-is-dying-i-am-part-of-the-problem-solutions-in-hand/

Donato and I had our differences in our beliefs about LinkedIn. We’re both coming around, and seeing what the true value of the tool is, and how a few abusing it, effects all participating.

We played, sir…well played.

I’m a caffeine junkie…love it, love it, LOVE…IT! I can pound a triple grande latte on the way to work, immediately inhale a cup of dark roast down at my desk, and be thinking about a Mountain Dew by 9:00 am. In fact, I’m hopped up as I write this.

I usually go to the local Starbucks, but due to a long line and the need to get into the office by 8:00am, decided to stop by a locally owned joint, Anodyne Coffee. They’ve been around for a couple years, and I drive by them all the time, but never stop by, because I know what to expect from the Starbucks, and like the product.

What a nice surprise! Yeah, yeah they do the whole “fair trade coffee” thing, and they have cool, hipster people working in their shop…and all that typical coffee shop jazz. What makes this place cool is the following:

• Local - the $$$ they earn goes to people in my neighborhood.
• Responsible - they’re not only a local employer, but a local, and worldwide contributor. They do stuff for a local parish, support a local guy’s fund raising efforts for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and provides free roasting/packaging services for a a small Haitian church that owns a coffee farm. The coffee’s given to their Milwaukee sister parish, who sells the coffee to parishioners, and sends the Haitians their money. That’s flippin’ cool!
• Their coffee kicks butt! I had a dark roast today, and I’ll likely buy one time and time again.

I’m not giving up on Starbucks, as the people who work there are familiar, and friendly, and I know what I’m going to get every day. What I am saying is this - if you always buy from the same vendor, shop at the same store, use the same products and ignore what else is available, you can never truly measure the value of your purchases. You might be missing a gem.

www.anodynecoffee.com

DRINK UP!

Daniel R. Tischer September 17th, 1934 - July 14, 2008.

Beloved husband, father, grandfather. Skilled carpenter/handyman, gifted bowler, avid outdoorsman, and king of making people laugh. If you ever met my dad, you’ll likely miss him. He was pretty awesome.

Good luck fishing, Dad…save a couple big ones for the rest of us!

I’m a Jeffrey Gitomer junkie. He became one of my favorite sales coaches when I met him some 6 1/2 years ago, after replying to one of his columns. For a long time, we were pretty chummy, and he featured me in some of his works.

Forget that he’s famous. For what he did for my confidence, and helping me establish my self-value as a sales professional, I still call him “my friend.”

Recently, he posted in his Sales Caffeine that he was writing a “Little Teal Book of Trust” - another in the series. He posted 3.5 (yeah, that’s his thing) questions on trust, and asked readers to reply with answers. I like the questions, so I’m posting them here, with my answers.

1. Why you trust other people.

From the buyer’s perspective -

I essentially “interview” everyone I make a sizeable purchase from. I ask questions that could be difficult to answer - limitations of their product, competition, what I should expect from them in terms of value. If the sales representative can look me straight in the eye, and give me a SINCERE answer (good, bad, or otherwise) without frosting it with a thick layer of B.S…they’ve earned my respect, and I will likely trust them in helping me make a good decision. I’m not guaranteeing a purchase, but I will guarantee that I’ll be honest with them in my purchasing decisions, and we’ll have open dialog through the buying process.

From the sales professional perspective -

I sell like I like to be sold to…so I prepare for those types of questions, and I address them, often before they’re even asked. And again, I’ll ask the client questions that might be difficult to answer in terms of what they’ve purchased in the past, how they’ve made purchases of similar products, and maybe even ask them about their relationships with vendors that I might consider to be competitors. I’m not looking to twist the “pain knife” but I am trying to understand if the two of us are going to have honest conversation, or if they’re going to never reveal their real problems, thus preventing me from helping them. I don’t have time for “show-me-what-you-got-and-I’ll-tell-you-if-I-like-it-at-the-price-you-pitch-it-to-me-for.”

2. Why you trust yourself.

Because I love my parents, and will never soil the name they gave me, by being someone less than who I am.

3. Your definition of trust.

Trust is the only thing you have, when the relationship between the vendor and the client is strained by something that’s gone wrong.

3.5 Your definition of a trusted advisor.

The people I consider to be my “trusted advisors” have helped me identify and solve problems, regardless of whether or not they will benefit from the solution, but merely because they care enough about me personally to want me to succeed. And that’s pretty cool.

Have an awesome day!

T

Midwest Express just announced a new “service” for their customers - cramped seating on their Boeing 717’s!

Dig this…

Introducing Midwest Class

I used to love flying on Midwest’s 717s, particularly because rows were 2×2, with Recaro leather seats, and a guy my size was totally comfortable…no belt extensions, no shoulder rubbing with the person next to you, and plenty of leg room. A three, four hour flight breezed by, with no cramps, no neckaches, and a sense of dignity, because I was, from at least a seating aspect, normal.

Heck, I didn’t even feel guilty eating those crack-like chocolate chip cookies, knowing darn well that they were contributing to my butt expansion.

So, what’s going to change? Well, Midwest is going to also expand my choices of seating arrangements, that’s what! Replacing more than half of those ultra-cool seats will be Recaro’s anorexic cousin “Recaro Saver” seats…2×3 seating, with an extra row stuffed in for good measure.

I don’t want seating choices…I want ONE seat choice…uniform, comfortable, and equal priced. It looks like I can have my “chunky butt” seat, if and only if, I fork over some additional $130/trip. Good luck getting THAT expensed at my start-up technology company that wants me to balance a family, a work schedule, AND a work-out regimen.

I might as well ask if my Health Savings Account covers Jack Daniels and Arturo Fuente cigars!

Midwest, if you’re reading this, please take notice. If you happen to see a wide man with spikey hair flying to or from Milwaukee stuffed in one of your so-called “saver seats” please proceed with the cookies, a crowbar…and extreme caution.

Okay…LinkedIn just got $53 million in capital, and a valuation of $1billion. One billion dollars. That just sounds BIG.

I often hear people throw around leads being worth about a buck a name. Hmmm…now, I know that there’s less than 1 billion users of LinkedIn…I’m guessing it’s a small fraction of. So what does this mean? It means this - contacts, and contact information is valuable, but contacts, and their relationships to other contacts are EXPONENTIALLY more valuable. That’s where LinkedIn is cashing in. That along with the forums, the organization of specific groups…the whole she-bang.

With that being said, what are the odds that LinkedIn is going to try to organize the data better, create better policing efforts toward open networking, and are going to attempt to capture even deeper levels of information and relationships between people?

Predictions. LinkedIn is going to use some of this cash to “clean-up” the relationship part of the site. Open networking within LinkedIn will become nothing more than a nuisance that will be remedied with some additional policing efforts.

These are just my thoughts. I’m not Nostradamus - but I do know the score of the Packers first game of the season, before it even happens. 0-0. That was way too easy!

Dig this read.

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=49253

What did I tell you?! Most people struggle with the “CR” of CRM. Consider this a wake-up call for everyone who thinks transaction instead of human interaction.

Word.

MT

I love LinkedIn. I think it’s super-cool technology…the ability for a user to meet people they want to engage through mutually trusted connections is invaluable. I emphasize “mutually trusted” because I think that was really the intent of the product.

You create your network with people you have a business relationship with - peers, customers, affiliates networking contacts. Those people in turn do the same. Through this thoughtful process, you build rings of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree contacts.

Should you need to reach out to someone for services, or to offer yours, the tool allows you to search by title, company or name, finding results from literally hundreds of thousands of people, then provides you the lineage of how the two of you are connected. You can then submit a request for an introduction through that lineage. Since everyone in that lineage knows and trusts each other, your request makes its way to its intended recipient, usually with a rousing endorsement from your peers. Cool!

That’s not the way the site’s working anymore. In fact, the idea of “mutually trusted” connections is a thing of the past. Like the famed Tila Tequilla of MySpace, LinkedIn now has a growing sub-category of LinkedIn participants called LIONS…or LinkedIn Open Networkers.

With a mission statement of supporting “the freedom to shape the direction and growth of the LinkedIn component of their members’ personal network” LIONSs are identified as people who won’t say ‘no’ to just about anybody wishing to link to them. They’re more concerned with quantity, rather than quality. One site has a cute little logic argument model drawn out that looks like this:

• YOUR Network = YOUR Network
• YOUR Network >> Your LinkedIn Connections
• The Quality of YOUR Relationships = The Quality of YOUR Network
• No One Knows The Value of a Potential Relationship A Priori
• Open Networks = Growing High-Quality Networks
• Closed Networks = Stagnating Low-Quality Networks

I’m agreement with some of it.

• What’s mine is mine, including my network.
• My true network IS greater than my LinkedIn connections.
• The quality of my relationships may or may not have much to do with the quality of my network. I may have a group of wonderful people in a BNI chapter, or in a chamber of commerce intermingled with a bunch of dillweeds. No one can measure the two relationships, and network independently, and then compare the two for a correlation.
• I love statement #4…I had to look up “a priori” to understand it’s meaning…a lawyer must have suggested that, in order to justify his/her fees defending a LION getting sued by LinkedIn. (BTW it means “based on a deduction, or hypothesis.” In statistics, it means “a knowledge of the actual population.” I’m guess the LIONs mean the former, not the latter.)
• The last two are kind of funny as well…Open-good…closed-bad. That almost flies in the face of my buddy #4. There’s just no way to tell.

Where I’m a little confused about that model is that it’s missing a seventh statement that I think they should include…

• Entities that Build Technology have No Right in Telling Users How to Use it.

See, that’s kind of the rub with LIONs…LinkedIn would prefer they not exist. The company realized that, if many people link to every and anyone, the idea of reaching out through existing relationships diminish. For example, if you have 100 contacts, and they each have 100 unique contacts, and THEY each have 100 unique contacts, you would in theory have a network of 1,000,000 people to access, and access you. This is somewhat unlikely, however…as your network will likely never have 100, that know 100 that know 100 unique people. Most ‘pure’ networks will probably have less contacts, and many ‘mutual’ contacts that cross multiple networks.

Now, if you have a couple LIONs in your network with open contacts, that population can become exponentially larger. With a couple LIONs in my network today, I have some +3 million contacts, and that number grows daily. For the most part, I’m pretty cool with that…as more contacts should yield more access, right?

Maybe not.

Something I think about. If these “contact hoarders” aren’t being discretionary as to who they allow in their networks, how can I be certain that everyone I’m connected to is an ethical, fair-minded business professional? Also, since I can’t “see” who views my requests to connect (”as they’re passed sometime through a 2nd degree, and 3rd degree contact), how can I be assured a person will 500, 1000, 10,000 connections will actually pass my request on to the intended recipient? How could someone realistically manage that many potential requests in a timely manner?

While I’m not suggesting that anyone actually does this, I think that the only way to use LinkedIn in a manner that ensures a) quality of connection, and b) the highest degree of delivery of connect messages, is to avoid the LION member all together.

Feedback appreciated, please!

iGoogle never fails to cheer me up with some dandy quotes. Out of sheer coincidence, my two (2) Lombardi quote generators kicked the same quote out today. (Yep - Plato, Socrates, Gandhi each get one…Lombardi gets two! Unfair? If Gandhi coached world champion football teams, he’d get two as well!)

Anyways, I like the quote…and if I managed a sales team, I’d post it on my desk…

“If you are not fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”

Very cool.

Also coming in with an awesome quote is the king of late night TV, one Mr. Johnny Carson!

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”

That’s it…have a great day, and enjoy what you do. You’ll be happy, and “fired with enthusiasm.” Don’t enjoy what you do, and you’ll likely be unhappy, and if noticed you’ll be “fired with enthusiasm.”

T

I’m getting asked - by coworkers, clients, technology partners, “What’s with the name?” I’m hoping they’re referring to “Feed Your Database” because after almost 39 years, I’ve gotten accustomed to Mike Tischer.

So, where did the name come from? Simple - it was a slogan that I thought really described what we do here at Broadlook Technologies…provide the tools for research-savvy sales and marketing people to get accurate, timely contacts into their database.

I had imagined some sort of little creature…like a gremlin, or a monster…gobbling up fresh contact information from the Internet via our software.

Cool imagery or some beer-induced dream?