There is a reason why I haven’t posted on my blog in over a month…

It’s not because I wanted to finish my blogging career covering the Old Spice guy.

It’s not because I haven’t had anything to say.

It’s because my team and I have been work hard to reach a sustainable point of business with ConvoSpark and provide our clients the best service possible.  Therefore, I have unfortunetly been in “workaholic” mode for the past few months.

Running an agency can be challenging and demanding of time and energy.  Agency works has been synonymous with scotch drinking executives that work 15 hour days and go home to their mistresses (think Mad Men).  However, I have not adopted this outdated notion and work-style.  Instead, I consciously think of the “how” when I am working…as long as that “how” is leading me towards results for my clients, learning for me and happiness I know the “how” is right on.

I believe savvy entrepreneurs find time saving ways to gain leverage and avoid this migraine producing work style.  However, I also believe that when an entreprneur is working towards reaching a defined destination..they need to maximize their effort.  And sometimes maximizing effort literally means pushing effort to the maximum (especially when running a service based company).

Being in this state of “maximized effort” for about two months, I can see it isn’t that bad.

Pursuing a destination does not have to be correlated with relentless grim determination (and Scotch drinking).  You can actually choose to enjoy the work you do…all 14 hours of work if necessary.  It takes endurance, the right mental approach and some mind slowing outlets.  Here are some methods and principles I have been going by that have made the past two months enjoyable and fulfilling.

Watch the trees

Find ways to slow down the mind.  My girlfriend’s mom sent me a quote today that read:

“We’re so busy watching out for what’s ahead of us that we sometimes forget to take the time to enjoy where we are.” -Calvin & Hobbs

Ain’t that the truth!  Running an agency can make you insane; constantly thinking about what you have to do…and what you have done…that sometimes it’s tough to get the mind to slow and just take on the task at hand.  What I have learned is that the best results (for you and your clients) come when you have intense focus on one item at a time.

Remember, sometimes it takes taking a step away from the laptop and smart phone to slow the mind a bit.  I prefer cereal at 7:30 while looking outside at the trees.  Nothing works better for me

Have great clients

As an owner or team member of an agency, you are only a portion of the equation.  The client typically plays a large roll in all major projects. Therefore, you better make sure to be working with some awesome people.

It is ok to discriminate a bit.  If a client is overly demanding for the sake of being demanding…they’re not worth your time.  Your mental health and your other clients will suffer because of that one client.

With this being said two things are very important.  One, you get a good understanding for your client, their needs and the details of their project pre-sale.  This way you can qualify the client and they can qualify your company as well.  Maybe the project is not worth the investment in terms of the time you will give and the money they will provide.  Maybe the client wants to work far outside your processes which will over extend you and your team.  Maybe you don’t like the client and they don’t like you (100k can’t get me to work with someone I don’t like).  Two, it’s is of the utmost importance to set expectations.  Give clients a look into your operations and how you will be handling their project.  Set specific deliverables and meeting times, making your company professional and minimizing the constant back and forth that can waist everyone’s time.

Embrace cosmic laughter

Work can gets crazy at times.  Servers can crash, a feature may not be working, designs might be all wrong…it happens.  Best thing you can do is laugh it off…like really laugh hard!  Recognize that the universe is still in motion and that the situation can be addressed.  Sometimes it take a little laughter to recognize those truths.

Measure Progress

I never have been good at treading water.  I prefer to be swimming forward (I really prefer to be on land).  Stagnation is never good for a business…and results are never as good if they aren’t measured.  By making sure to gage progress you are moving forward towards gaining momentum.  You will subconsciously be moving towards bettering your progress and hitting the goals you set.  Incremental success is paramount in obtaining fulfillment in work.

We make sure to measure our client’s and team success frequently.  This keeps moral up since we feel like we’re working with purpose.  We are also trying to get better at celebrating our successes that are well deserved.

I would love to hear what you think…any tips…thought…or specific tree locations…let me know.

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Today I can confidently say that I am an entrepreneur. I am one, because I say I am, I feel I am and I make a unique contribution to the world.

Here’s me diving deeper into this topic…

When did you know you were an entrepreneur?  What is an entrepreneur in your mind?

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The video below dives into 4 absolutely vital principles to adopt when building your personal brand online.

Build a platform

We’re not talking about building your own Facebook or a massive blog.  Instead we are talking about a more figurative platform.  Build a platform by leveraging all the cool stuff you are doing right now.  If you work for a big company let people know what you’re doing (it got Scoble pretty far).  If you own a company…associate yourself with your company and the company with yourself.  If you have passions, shout it from a mountain top and see who you will connect with!

Don’t be bashful

I love that word…bashful.  In this case we’re going to treat it as a bad word.  For some people, such as myself, it can be quite difficult to talk about yourself.  Especially if you don’t feel like you have accomplished anything worthwhile.  At that point, you must think from this perspective: “there is always someone who wants to be where you are and wants to know how you got there”…cater to these people now and expand your audience as you grow.  Don’t be bashful, talk about your accomplishments, build up your credibility but please always put humility first.

Build up others

Focus on others before yourself.  When you connect two people that will benefit from each other you are building up your own importance indirectly.  When you showcase someone’s good work by tweeting it out to the world, you are validating their efforts.  When you focus on others, new possibilities open up, paths to new people emerge and you can now identify more opportunities and how it relates not just to you but to everyone else you are connected with.

Add value to the community

Have something uniquely valuable to say.  What you do online should be governed by the question “how am I adding value?”.  You can talk about yourself, your accomplishment but if it doesn’t help anyone else…no one will care about what you have to say.  Find ways to differentiate yourself and find new perspectives that not many have.  If you focus on adding value first, you will be moving in the right direction.

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In the spirit of the launch of the free  Success E-book by 30 of the worlds most awesome bloggers!  Here is my take on the all encompassing yet hard to define term “success”.

The Marriam Webster Dictionary defines success as the following:

favorable or desired outcome; also : the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence

Well Marriam and Webster whoever you are…I beg to differ…

Success is commonly defined as a destination, an outcome, basically a single point.  That destination is typically determined by the money, status and/or power that the successful person has obtained.  There are some obvious problems with this positioning of the concept of success:

1st: If success is a single point in the road, what was before it and what follows after it?  Every successful person (by societal standards) knows that success was not achieved at one single point in their journey.  It was achieved by failing, stumbling and learning a 1,000 times before you “succeed”. Telling successful people they have “made it” and now “succeeded” is a completely backhand bitch slap to the face of any person who has spent hours grinding, months flat broke and have had their decisions questioned by many of their loved ones.  Those truly successful people have always known they were successful regardless of their external life situation.  They also know that passion does not relinquish once you “make it”.

2nd: Who chose these metrics?  Money, status and power not only focus on the outward and some what superficial nature of success but it excludes millions of successful people that work under a different set of metrics.  Simply reflect on the accomplishments of Mahatma Gandhi.  An individual with little money, status or power led one of the largest political and spiritual movements the world has ever witnessed.  Marriam Webster would fail to declare Gandhi as a “successful” individual.  Live by your own metrics of success not anyone elses!

Without future addo here is how I define success:

-Success is loving who you are and being proud of what you contribute to the world. Achieve it by doing what you love, surrounding yourself with people you love and not settling for ordinary.

Download the free Ebook and checkout what to success is to 29 other successful bloggers.  Don’t forget to checkout the brain child of this collaborative project, Jonny at The Life Thing.

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What Will You Do Before John Cusack Gets Another Leading Role?

The Mayans have done one of two things with their calendar.  Either, they have predicted the end of the world, in which we have only few years to live in a state of constant anxiety or with absolutely no reservation…ORRRrrrr they were too lazy to count beyond 2012, which means we will live beyond 2012 and wished we lived the past two year with no reservation instead of being anxiety ridden.

Just for the sake of positive pressure, why don’t we all assume that the world is going to end in 2012.  What would you do in 2010 that would make you’re entire life meaningful?  The world is changing rapidly, the people that are going to facilitate that change are the people that are going to be able to picture what they want, plan out how to get it and make meaning  behind their entire course of action.

You may get the sense that I intend on making the most of my upcoming years!  And it all begins with 2010.  We need to make this the year that we go beyond New Years Resolutions and achieve what we are meant to achieve.

With all that being said it takes a little more than putting your mind to it.  It takes understanding, planning and action to accomplish great things in 2010.

Understanding- Start With Resolutions

We have all fell victim to poor New Years Resolution planning before…there is no need to be ashamed.  Typically what happens is you jot down a few things you would like to do in the new year.  The resolutions are normally 180 behavioral shifts from stuff you did the year before.  That paper you jotted down your resolutions on is supposed to keep you accountable throughout the new year…full proof right?

Try this…

• Jot down everything you want to accomplish in the new year.
• Explain to yourself why you want to accomplish each item.
• Move you resolutions onto a goal list and see if each resolution fits within your master plan.

Planning- Set Goals

Goal setting is where your real planning takes form.  These are the items that you are a 100% accountable for.  These goals should be near and dear to you and act as a constant reminder of what needs to be accomplished.

Here are the steps you can take to make sure you don’t only set goals, but you accomplish your goals:

• Take your resolutions and begin to separate them based on category.  Example) write for Mashable goes in the Personal Branding/ Social Media category –> Finish my first course of French goes in the Personal category.
• Start building goals around resolutions you have set in each category.
• Make sure each goal is measurable.
• Give a timeline for the accomplishment of that goal.
• Access all your goals and begin to reduce your list.  Begin to take away the extraneous and time consuming goals that won’t fulfill your overall mission.  Note that reducing your scope of goals can be even more important that building you goal list out.  If your list is too big, you may be overwhelmed and discouraged by your lack of progress because you spread yourself too thin.

Last but not least…

Action-Track Your Milestones

I learned that goal lists often get lost in the shuffle (just like resolutions).  Therefore, I made an effort to break down my yearly goals into monthly action plans.  Monthly action plans is much easier to manage than a list full of goals.  I have seen the best results when I:

• Take goals from each category which need to be addressed right away.
• Break them down into quantifiable goals that can be met over the course of a month.  Example) If your goal is to have 20 guest posts published in 2010, your action plan for January should be to write 2 guest posts for x and y blogs.
• Create milestones for each week.  Over the course of 7 days, what will need to be finished in order to finish up your monthly goals?
• Take a Post It and write out what you need to accomplish for that day.  Make sure to keep it short and sweet (maximum 3 medium sized tasks).  This will make sure you never loose site of the task at hand.

What I will be doing…

In case you were curious…here are a few things I am focusing on in the upcoming year.

• Less time in front of the computer and more time reading and being physically active.
• Exploring the outdoors.
• Building up myself as a go to resource in the social media and young entrepreneur niches.
• Become even more active in meeting new and interesting people.
• Start a highly successful business (more on this to come).
• Create multiple streams of income.
• Begin to put money away in reserve.
• Begin to learn French.
• Hang out more with family.
• Hang out more with friends.
• Love my girlfriend more and more each day.
• Live everyday with gratitude.

For me, 2009 was the fastest year of my life.  I hope I was able to absorb everything I took in.

For everyone, I hope 2009 has been amazing and even more importantly, I hope you accomplish all that you truly want to accomplish before the world ends

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Hands In! Maybe?

If you are an entrepreneurs, it’s very likely some of your friends are entrepreneurs.  Which is fantastic right?  That means you can come together for ideas, advice and other forms of insightful collaboration.  Of course, there will be many opportunities for you to pursue ventures with your friends.  Pretty exciting stuff, I know.

However, one must consider the possible pitfalls of partnering with friends on ventures (impressive alliteration eh).  Many times friendships get tested and business decisions get clouded.

With a talented group of friends and more and more partnership opportunities coming my way, I have to consider the good, the bad and the ugly before I jump into a new venture.  And you should consider it as well.

The Good

The single most important thing is that expectations are set.  There must be one vision and one team moving in unison.  If they fall off track a bit, they have the wherewithal to hop back on and get moving in the right direction.  Since birds of a feather flock together, your friends most likely have some of the same skills, talents and interested.  That shouldn’t mean that roles and positions aren’t set.  Egos may be tampered with when one friend is named the CEO over another but a group must define roles in order to have expectations met and the organization operate effectively.  Setting expectations and defining roles based on each individual’s strengths and desires is the only way a business friendship combo can work.

When all is accounted for and everyone is on the same page, you can only imagine the benefits.  You are working side by side with people you care about on a project you care about.  There is nothing better in this world then spending quality time with good friends.  If you are able to start up a successful business with your friends, you live the virtues of spending quality time with them while changing the world and making money.  Doesn’t get much better then that.

The Bad

Business decisions sometimes takes emotionless fortitude to move the right direction.  On the other hand, for friendship’s to flourish, one must have the capacity to empathize with their friends on a deep emotional level.  If you cannot find a balance between the two temperaments, be prepared for a short and bumpy ride.  To find this balance the team must be committed to being as open as possible.  Disclose all, from you finances to your feelings.  If you stumble across a partner that is not willing to be open, pick up your bags and roll out.

Say you do get to the point where each team member can strike a balance between business and friendship and prove to be open with each other.  You’ve made it passed step one.  However, in step two, money is something that will need to be accounted for.  Many entrepreneurs have the idealist notion is that you create something great and the money will fall into place (I still work under the notion…yes I am a romantic).  But at some point some type of reality sets in, either your costs are piling up or money is flowing in (hopefully the later).  If your friends and business partners does not have a clear picture of their capital contribution things are liable to get bad.  Never, never let friendships break up over money.  Be smart and bring in a trusted third party part time CFO if you need to, the money is worth the money.  If you are in this position, go talk to my friend and financial expert Trishan. He is a honest and knowledgeable guy that will set up your company’s finances for you.

The Ugly

My first venture Blacktop Hoops is the quintessential example of friendships and ventures turned ugly.  I ended up collaborating with a friend I only knew for a short period of time.  We had our differences but since we believed we needed each other we stuck through it.  He later brought his friend on to be our developer.  Communication was terrible and there was far too much tippy toeing around people’s feelings.  End result, is that the partnership is now dissolved.  Learn the whole ugly story here.

Conclusion

Make sure you know what you are getting your self into before you jump into it.  Set expectations, roles and most importantly make sure your group compliments each other.  No good friendship is worth ruining over business and no good business worth ruining because of a friend. 

Have you worked with friends before?  What have you learned from the experience?

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This post was written as a feature article for the Brazen Careerist community.

In today’s professional world, our influence extends only as far as our relationships. This is fantastic news for the Hollywood lookalikes and handshaking enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the majority of us lack the jawline and the forearm fortitude to become a master networker and develop a strong personal brand.

Right?

Not even close.

Thanks to social media flattening the world, transparency reigns supreme. This means that the individuals who are authentic, knowledgeable and that can add value to an area of interest can make a name for themselves. This culture of openness has brought incredible opportunities my way, as well as to thousands of other proactive individuals looking to express themselves and make a difference. Here are some keys to success when it comes to opening up and creating opportunity:

Express Yourself

If you keep a keen eye to many of the popular social media channels you will notice that there are more and more interesting people these days. Actually, it’s not that the world is hosting more interesting people; it’s that we now have the platforms that allow anyone to position themselves as interesting. Millions of people watch Mr. Average Joe perform mediocre slapstick comedy on YouTube, while thousands of people on Twitter follow every link, word and character from the new Ruby on Rails Guru. Today anyone can be a celebrity, why not you? Go on Twitter,  YouTube,  Facebook,  create a blog and show the world what you love and start adding value through expression.

Find Your Niche

If you are planning to start a Twitter account to constantly tweet about what you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner and expect to amass a huge following that will be interested in what you have to say, you are delusional. Find a niche that excites you and makes you want to share your expertise. If you share great content to the right people you will begin to gain credibility within your niche. Reach out to others in your niche and have real life conversations. You may be able to help each other out and build a strong relationship.

Have a Conversation

Don’t complicate this social media thing. The best personal branders are people leverage social media in order to have conversations with the intent to share and add value to the other person or community. Start reaching out to people you look up to and let them know you admire them, tell them a bit about yourself and express your unique opinion about their work. Becoming their friends is not so farfetched anymore. Also reach out to people in the same niche as you, they can provide you with a wealth of knowledge, partnership opportunities and/or cross promotional channels. Create enough conversations and you may be the next authority that everyone wants to have a conversation with.

The playing field is leveled for those willing to open up and get out there and play. Just remember be authentic, be knowledgeable, add value and opportunities will begin to come your way.

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The last month of my life has made me feel far more important then I should feel. Airplanes, fancy hotels, San Diego, New York, VCs and CEOs…the usual. Not exactly, but with a bit more practice maybe someday soon it will be more “usual” then not. I have attended both the DMA Conference in San Diego and the Ad Tech Conference in New York. To my dismay I noticed something alarming at each conference…everything was the SAME. There was so much duplication I thought I was watching reruns of “Sister Sister” (ok bad joke). But serious, they were both marketing conferences. Marketers are meant to constantly find creative solutions with their right brain heavy mindset. What I saw was a bunch of companies that I could not tell apart to save my life and people spitting out the same pitch over and over. Maybe it was my lack of industry knowledge but I wasn’t intrigued by much.

Not to toot my own horn but on a bright note, my company and I were able to create some buzz, leads and solid relationships in a short amount of time (I thought by now being a social media company at a marketing conference wouldn’t be that novel). On a more personal note I tested a few assumptions out at these conferences trying to find some unique ways to meet the right people, create some new business and make a name for myself. Here are a few tips that work:

1. Hang with a Big Timer- It’s amazing how far chatting it up in a lunch line can get you. I an intriguing fellow who had a professional relationship with both the Google and Yahoo founders, has a PHD in Robotics, worked as a CTO of a major tech startup and was a key component to a recent presidential election. Needless to say, I didn’t know what to say. However, I was able to ask him engaging questions and build enough credibility for myself by sharing my insights on certain topics. By just spending 30 minutes with him, I was able to meet the man behind democrats.com and a CSO of a large marketing company. It pays to go BIG (inadvertently).

2. Throw out Something Unique and Memorable- At big conventions your handshake numbers will go through the roof, so bring some hand sanitizer and a note pad because it’s hard to keep up. It is nearly impossible to remember every single person you meet; many are giving the same pitch, introduction and representing the same type of companies. The people I remembered were the people that did something unique and memorable. From wearing a bow tie and snap on bracelets to telling exciting stories, there are many ways one can grasp your attention…because with all the duplication, you will be begging for something different. So try “different” out: introduce yourself as the “social media guru extraordinaire” (don’t forget to laugh after), wear some flamboyant get-up, or tell a compelling story as a pitch rather than the usually dry stuff.

3. Go Beyond Your Company…Personalize- When you prowl the exhibition hall you will naturally lock eyes with a representative at one of the booths; once that happens it’s over, you have to go and chat. The convo typically goes like this:

• You: So, what do you guys do?
• Rep: We provide top of the line solutions to help your company find and manage your customers…blah blah.

This approach is beyond boring since you have heard it many times over. I worked the booth day in and day out and tested a few things. What I found worked the best was personalizing your pitch. Personalize it based on who you are talking to…where they are from, what industry they are in, what company they work for and so on. Here is what I found to be an effective pitch:

• Business Person: What do you guys do?
• You: To be honest it depends on what you do. So tell me ____ what does ____ do? (while looking at their badge).
• Business Person: Well, we are an interactive media agency out of LA looking for marketing companies to help us with our social media campaigns for some large health food brands we represent. (ideal)
• You: Oh fantastic, it sounds like you guys have some great clients in a progressive industry! We have worked with some integrative agencies out of LA in the past and have helped them launch some very viral social media campaigns. Interestingly enough we have worked on a project with a health food company that we helped strengthen their presence on Facebook. What are you doing in terms of social media for your clients at this point?

You win right here because you are: 1) Asking them the initial questions, thereby guiding the conversation. 2) Appealing to their ego by sincerely stating they are special in some way. 3) Customizing your offering to fit exactly what they need.

4. Have Fun! - I don’t know about you but I am naturally attracted to happy people. Smiles and laughs go a long way when it comes to business…contrary to what some may think.

5. Follow Up- This is the most important point of all! Far too many opportunities are lost because of poor follow-ups (note: I have not yet followed-up with the people I spoke to at Ad Tech, eeek). Set aside the majority of your time the following week to organize your contacts and begin the follow-up process. During the conference, make sure that you write down notes on each business card you receive, you will thank yourself later. Second, when you get back to the office, organize your cards based on the most urgent to just basic contacts. Third, call the urgent ones right away and continue the conversation you had at the conference. Make sure to take notes about personal items you went over; it comes in handy to spark up the conversation again. Fourth, email those who are less urgent. You can use a template that you create but make sure to use some level of customization. Lastly, Follow-up on your follow-ups…don’t let anything slip.

Conferences can be the best opportunity to make a name for yourself. Leave nothing up to chance, be proactive and unique and your name should begin to spread! If you have some interesting conference stories or insights let us know!

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Photo from Ethan Hein

If you are working on or thinking on working on your first startup, read this. It should help you avoid a messy situation.

In the journey of entrepreneurship, ups and downs are expected. So when BlackTop Hoops had an entire month of everything going right, it was to be assumed that the perfect storm was waiting right around the corner. Here is a quick story of how the perfect storm hit my first big scale entrepreneurial project, BlackTop Hoops, how I handled it and how you can do better.

I tried to forge the river and my wagon got flooded (everyone likes nostalgic analogies right?).

For those of you not familiar with me or BlackTop Hoops, I have been working on “BTH” for a little over a year trying to figure how to help recreational basketball connect and organize. I set forth to create social platform which would allow online communities of basketball players to highlight their basketball skill set, find courts to play on and organize game to play in (this was BTH’s core). Our (I’ll tell you the reason for the “our” usage later) grandiose plan was to help basketball organizations (leagues, tournaments and trainers) promote their companies and organize their members. We believe that rec. basketball is far too segmented to the detriment of basketball players …so we would build the community, bring in the organizations and create a meaningful/ profitable company Yayayy!! Easier written then executed. It turns out that when I started I knew absolutely nothing, but was ballsy enough to take the leap of faith and get going on the project. I guess I knew so little that a year later, I still didn’t have a finished product to push public.

In September I worked with my CMO on bringing on a developer who would be a partner of the project and work for sweat equity. It sounded perfect! A month earlier I spent too much time and money on a development team who could not execute. I was desperate, I did not want to spend any significant amount of money yet at the same time, I didn’t have many options. That was until my CMO came to me with what seemed to be a great option. He was a good programmer, a better business man, a cool guy and best of all, he believed in BlackTop Hoops. This was going to work out perfectly.

Fast forward a month later. It’s early October and we’re about a month away from launching our Beta version to the public. I was rushing to solidify our marketing plan, incorporate our business, and make sure the development process was running smoothly. Being in the web development sector, I should have known that development never goes smoothly. So in the first week of October, right before me and my developer got our meeting rolling, he uttered the unequivocally painful words, “I am going to have to pull out of this project”. I remember this so crystal clear, everything stopped; I listened and did not respond. I felt a slight sense of shock mixed in with the emotion you would feel if your baby was kidnapped (no adjective for that). His reasoning was he did not see the benefit outweighing the cost at that point and the benefit in his mind was money. After reflecting on this, the real reason it fell through wasn’t the money potential or compensation. It was because we didn’t take enough time to fully understand each other’s expectations. Since I am the president of the company…I deserve all the blame.

I remember just sitting at the desk after the phone was hung up. My mind stopped and I was immediately comforted by the feeling that ran through me. It was the feeling of opportunity. Idea after idea came to my head. Some having to do with how to move forward with BTH and others suggesting that I buy a ticket to Peru; the good thing was that they were all ideas of hope instead of self loathing. After babying it at the expense of my girlfriend I love, I decided to put BTH on the back burner for an indefinite amount of time and focus on my next move.

So here I am today, almost a month later and have one temporarily stalled project on my hands. Hindsight is always 20/20, so I thought I’d cast my eagle eye vision on this blog post and tell what I would have done differently to prevent this mini catastrophe.

Here is what I would have done differently

• Defined each partner’s expectations right from the beginning- I am not that dumb. I made sure we all define our expectations. However, not to the extent that we all were completely on the same page. We were fine with the undefined gray area (in this case it was partnership terms, rev share, etc.) hoping that we can work on good faith until we were ready to solidify the partnership fully.  That turned out to be a big mistake as I was working with a developer who owned a dev firm so needed to see immediate ROI.  He wanted revenue streams from the start while I wanted to build a community first and monetize second.  No wonder it didn’t work.

• Created less of a Partnership and more of a Team- We were working to better basketball, we should have known the concept of team. Each person in the group worked together but seemed to have their own agenda. The camaraderie wasn’t there and it really needed to be to make it work. Make sure to not commit to a team before you need to. Get help from friends, VAs, mentors, etc…but when you get your first partner you best make sure they are a true team member.

• Do a little more market research- You MUST test your assumptions. If you feel like your market wants X…ask if your market wants X. I got held up with thinking my concept was full proof. Of course I met with some amazing people who had some amazing input and made sure to include my friends in on the process, but for the most part I failed to ask the people that mattered…the basketball players. Do not make the same mistake.  On the other side of the coin, don’t get caught up doing too much market research.  Too much research can be more of a hindrance then anything else and doom a promising project right from the start.

• Created a budget for almost everything- I jumped in not understanding competitive pricing of web development.  Boy was that a mistake…actually…I’ll call it an expensive education. Next time I will make sure to find a development team that will work at a fixed project rate, that has a development shop big enough to deliver a finished product on time and give the project the attention it deserves. Disclaimer: many large development shops do not work under the guiding principle of transparency. You must make sure to find one that does.

• Gave it that extra percentage point- It’s hard for me to admit this but, I could have put more into this project. Don’t get me wrong I shed sweat, blood and tears for BTH but I could have hustled a bit more. You can always hustle a bit more, ask Gary V. As a young entrepreneur you most likely have fewer resources, less knowledge, a smaller network then your competitors. What you do have is an unlimited amount of energy, passion and the naivety that could possibility work in your favor. Embrace being the underdog and hustle like crazy!

Please let me know what you would do differently if you were in my situation. Better yet, please let me know what tips you have for BlackTop Hoops…I would love to hear from you and this time my ears are fully open.

Thanks for listening…I hope you can learn from my mistakes!

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I am boldly stating that one of the biggest obstacles entrepreneurs face with their ventures, or any type of online work for that manner, is to maintain keen focus on a task until completion. Being entrepreneurs (or aspiring ones) we are innately inquisitive to a point where learning about new and exciting topics can be a detriment to our productivity. In my case, I can’t help but uncovering a trail of interesting links: like a blog article that will help me market my brand on social media, then clicking a link that will show me how to boost my person brand, then of course I have to check out the author’s Twitter… I can’t help but to follow the bread crumbs (Is that the phrase?). All these social platforms that aggregate, syndicate and pollinate web content helps make social media enthusiasts’ lives easier by helping them discover and share information that they find important. However, on the other side of the coin, they create easily accessible distractions that can help steer you off course.  How can you find a balance between information input and output?…Here are 5 practical ideas to help you get there while working online:

1. Map 0ut your milestones ahead of time:

This is a key to the success in any endeavor!  I typically break down my list to three month periods, monthly milestones, weekly items and daily tasks (read this article by Jun Loayza to figure out how to do this).  Make sure each milestone written down aligns with your core focus in some way.  If it doesn’t, that task is secondary and must not be completed until your core milestones are finished.  This will let you envision your path before you have to pull out the machete and blaze the trail.

2. Use Google Tasks or another ToDo List Service:

I use Google Tasks (a tool included with Gmail) to organize my weekly milestones.  I believe keeping this list in your peripheral is vital.  I say peripheral because having the list in the forefront  is time consuming in its self and will gives your anxiety when you glance at the empty check boxes.  This list will hold you accountable and keep you in check (no pun) while you are performing a task.  No lie, checking a box once you fully completing a task is strangely satisfying.  Check out this list of other ToDo list products if Google Tasks doesn’t do it for you.

3. Limit yourself to 3 browser tabs at one time:

To be open, I don’t abide by this tip enough.  But I have found that it works wonders when followed.  Why?  First of all, it allows you to only work with the bare essentials.  A task can get bogged down by extraneous garbage all the time; therefore the bare essentials are essential.  For example: on my browser, I will have my Gmail (and task list), Pandora, and whatever internet program I am using to complete the task at hand.  Resist the temptation to tweet what you’re doing or to check you Facebook newsfeed…if you can’t…break the task down into smaller segments and complete that segment before giving in.

4. Turn off all IM programs or set your status as “busy”:

Believe me Gchat, Yahoo Messenger and Skype all provide users with amazing features and utility( I got through my cooperate stint with a little help from Yahoo emoticons), however the “ping, ping, ping” can throw you off.  I keep Gchat on the majority of the time because I am almost always logged into my Gmail (normal just to keep the task tab populated).  I make sure to keep my Gchat on “busy” or sometimes “invisible” if I really need to focus.  “Busy” makes it so friends and other contacts can still ping me at anytime…but they will most likely ask me when a good time to talk is (not D Gip).  Be warm and accept messages from everyone…but never to the extent that it throws you off task.

5. Set aside time to read article and subscribe to interesting blogs.

This one is very important in the age of social media.  I try my hardest to set time aside early in the morning and late at night to read interesting articles I stumbled upon during the day.  If I come across something interesting on Twitter, or else where, I will bookmark that article in Delicious to read later.  If the overall theme and content of the blog engages me right away I will subscribe to it and toss it in my reader. This method makes sure that you keep your very important milestones in the forefront during the bulk of your day and keeps the beginning and end stimulating.

If you don’t take my word for it, leave it to me favorite psychologist of all time emphasize it eloquently: “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook”- William James

If you or a friend suffers from Internet ADD please pass this along.  This article can help!

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