2010 January | Tribeswell

Okay here’s what I don’t get… We’ve been prophesying the iPad for years now and no one had the guts to beat Apple to the punch (except the folks at Techcrunch with their Crunchpad, which I’m sad didn’t get off the ground).

Here’s my biggest problem…

They totally missed the boat!!!

The iPad virtually guarantees that I’ll still need to bring my laptop with me most of the time, because it lacks two simple features.

Did you hear that!? Two more features and it would have almost been the perfect device!!!!

Where’s the USB port!!!!??? – Seriously, this is crazy to me. What if I want to use an external USB drive? What if I want to take photos or video from an external camera and use them on the iPad. This is a huge drawback.
Why isn’t there a video out!!!???? - Why can’t I plug this thing into a projector and run powerpoint presentations or play movies. I think this is also a huge problem.

Someone please design a device that is similar to the iPad that has these two features. Right now I can get a netbook for $300 that has both. I can also outfit it with a 3G card for maybe another $50 bucks.

And it comes with video out and at least 3 USB ports, and great battery life. Come on, there’s got to be a touch-screen version of this.

Apple announces the iPad (arstechnica.com)

To say that I’m a huge Gary Vaynerchuk fan would be the understatement of the century. I think Gary is badass and inspiring and that he’s definitely one of the people who is changing the world.

With that said, I didn’t go out right away and buy his book ‘Crush It‘ when it first came out, because I wanted to wait for the audio version, which only just came out recently. My patience was worth it.

: Image by Dan Patterson via Flickr

One of the things that really hit home was when he talks about analytics. He advocates not even checking your stats or traffic for the first year.

I’m one of those people who used to check his traffic every morning first thing. I was pretty much obsessed with getting those numbers up as much as possible. I think in a lot of ways that was a waste of time. I should have been focused on tightening my tribe.

It’s interesting to look at day to day activities and calculate what each one contributes and what each one costs. I don’t check my analytics as often these days.

Not Crushed by Vaynerchuk’s “Crush It” (markevanstech.com)
What It Means to #CrushIt (internetgeekgirl.com)
Patience, Passion and Hustle. (texacaliwinetrail.blogspot.com)
Putting Web Analytics into Perspective (brilliantthinking.net)

I’ve heard from people like Chris Brogan that you should never apologize if you neglect to post on your blog. I guess the argument is that if you apologize you’re bringing attention to something that has past, and is therefore no longer relevant.

I have to agree for the most part. I didn’t post at all last week or the first two days of this week. In some ways this looks pretty bad. I’m supposed to be a blogging evangelist, after all.

On the other hand, I’ve been doing a ton of work for clients, and my business is running quite smoothly.

I can honestly say that it’s good to have a break every now and then, but also that I truly miss interacting with the online world when I’m away for two long. It’s a huge part of my life and I’m pretty certain that it will remain that way for years to come.

I’ve twice found myself in the role that Tony Scelzo calls ‘the worst job in the world’… The first salesman hired in a startup company.

The first time I found myself there I worked for Marketpath, a web company in downtown Indianapolis. Actually I was technically the second salesman… I was hired a few months after my good friend T.J. Furman.

The founders had business coming in, and they wanted much more. They had just signed a huge deal with the Harding Poorman group that generated tens of thousands of dollars plus residuals.

‘Great!’ I thought. ’I'll sell a ton of websites and make a boatload.’

It didn’t take long for me to realize that selling websites was hard work. While TJ and I sold several websites in our first few months, we definitely weren’t generating enough income to justify having 2 salesmen on staff full-time, so I got the boot.

It seemed that the founders were much better at selling than we were.

So, I started looking for a new job, because I didn’t yet believe that I had the skills to go into business for myself. I went to work for Brandswag… as the first salesman they had ever hired.

The founder, Kyle Lacy, had a ton of momentum going which I thought would make working with us an easy sell. After a few months it became clear that people really preferred to do be sold by the business owner. And again I didn’t get the job done.

So I went into business for myself…

And people started buying from me.

Here’s my point… If you’re a founder or owner of the business, people assume you have the power to make deals. They know that you’re staking your name and reputation on your work, and they assume that you’re skilled in what you do (ie, you’re good at graphic design, so they don’t assume you’re great at sales).

So here’s the point. Sales made by the business owner don’t count. They all go towards funding the business. A salesperson will rarely be as good as the founder and it’s likely that the founder will lose money on the salesperson for the first several months.

Thoughts?

Just a quick blurb to plug a new area of the Tribeswell website. You can find it at http://seminars.tribeswell.com.

I created the Seminars subdomain site so that people interested in registering for seminars (and nothing else) would have a simple, uncluttered interface to use.

Currently I have a seminar coming up in Columbus, IN next Thursday (January 28) at 10 am at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce.

Expect to see lots more seminars coming up. This site (and my speaking career) is just beginning.