Tag Archives: Consulting

This Is My 1,000th Post!

I posted my first bit of drivel on May 22, 2008.  It was all of 218 words and by way of introduction I said:

My name is Keith, and I’m a guy who works with companies on using media to grow their businesses. It could be that nasty old traditional stuff like radio and TV or it could be that newfangled stuff like social media. Either way, bubba. Since it’s not about the channel.

Hopefully the writing has improved a little but what I like is that the basic mission hasn’t:

You would be surprised how many folks I’ve met over the years do something because it’s cool…rather than because it ties in nicely to their business goals, strategies, and tactics.  So that’s what we’ll look at in this blog, with a particular emphasis on the emerging media business as well as sports. I’ll probably throw in a few food tips as well since we can’t be all work and no play.

Which is pretty much where we still are although I guess there’s the odd tip I’ve learned over the last 35 years about managing thrown in as well.  The technology has changed a lot in four years but business hasn’t.  We’ve committed to Friday as our food day and I probably don’t write as much about sports now as I used to.  We still generally avoid politics other than to use them to illustrate a broader point (although I’m thinking about using one day a week to focus on facts without advocacy as we hit election time – thoughts?).

Here’s the most important thing I can say to you after 999 other attempts:  thank you.  Thank you for reading, for sharing posts with others, and for taking the time to comment, both here on the screed and back to me via email (I realize some of you don’t want your thoughts quite so public – fine with me!).  Hopefully you’ll do more of each of them in the future.  I’m always surprised and grateful when someone I’m just meeting or with whom I’m reconnecting says “I like your blog.”  I can see readership numbers but it’s always better for me to meet just one actual reader.

If you had asked me a few years back if I’d still be posting every work day four years down the road, I’d have said that I don’t have that many words or cogent thoughts in me.  Turns out I was wrong.  Thank you all very much!

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Skin In The Game

As part of the mix of services I provide to clients, sometimes I write RFPs and evaluate the responses in order to select the top couple of potential vendors.  It’s not all that different from what I used to do in a previous life.  Hardly a day went by that some new company asked for a meeting in order to pitch the latest and greatest piece of technology or a service that was going to increase my group’s revenues dramatically.  Then and now, the conversation turns to the business model:  how are the two organizations to work together, where does money change hands, and what accountability do we have to one another?

It was usually during that part of the discussion that there was a “tell”, as poker players call it – the thing that gives away how good a hand you’re playing.  For me, this tell was always about how much skin the company had in the game, and to this day I think it’s an important factor in evaluating partnerships. Continue reading

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The Tools

I got into one of those conversations a couple of weeks ago.  You know the ones:  something is so obvious to you and yet you don’t seem to make your point clearly.  No, the conversation wasn’t about politics although it does seem as if most political conversations would fit my description.  This one was about buying search ads but it just as easily could have been about Facebook, Twitter, or any number of other easily accessible digital tools.

At one point, the other party mentioned that they could do what I and a couple of others who are assisting them are doing on their behalf far less expensively either by doing it themselves or by hiring a “kid” part-time.  Putting aide that in essence a consultant is part-time help, I remembered the old joke about Henry Ford and Tesla identifying a problem area in 5 seconds – it’s $1 for making the mark and $9,999 for knowing where to make it.  A good thing to keep in mind and let me explain. Continue reading

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Filed under Consulting, digital media