I’ve been holding off on my writing until my new blog is finished (cangialosi.net), but things are taking a bit longer than anticipated. In the meantime, I’ve been accumulating topics that I want to start writing on and figured why wait, everything is going to get ported over to the new blog anyway.

It has been almost 5 months since I sold Blue Sky Factory. Since then, I’ve transitioned myself out of the day to day of the business, spent a month in NYC, traveled for weeks in Italy with my family, spent a ton of time trying to help reboot Baltimore’s local tech council, completed a consulting project, completed a handful of angel investments, and have finally settled back into Baltimore and have begun thinking about whats next. Along the way, I’ve spoken with many entrepreneurs, investors, & visited a bunch of startup accelerators & incubators, and have been thinking a lot about the entrepreneurial cycle, and how it relates to the creation of entrepreneurial communities.

This is a topic that I have been giving a lot of thought to given my recent exit, especially as it relates to my hometown of Baltimore. In Baltimore, we seem to have this void of a truly functioning entrepreneurial ecosystem, yet we have all of the pieces of the puzzle, right here, right now. I’ll add some color to this later in the post.

The Entrepreneurial Cycle:

First, lets define the “cycle.” In my mind, the entrepreneurial cycle is the experience of starting a company, scaling a company, and successfully exiting (selling) a company. These events can be both large and small (both in size and scale of the company, and the financial implications), and take anywhere from months to decades to complete. In some cases, the experience comes with investment, and for others, like myself (this time around), bootstrap with no investment and grow organically. The experience comes in many different flavors.

So, What Happens Next?

Every entrepreneur takes a different path in the cycle of entrepreneurship. However, one of the big questions about the cycle is, WHAT HAPPENS AFTER AN ENTREPRENEUR EXITS?

A few, but certainly not all, of the answers to this question I’ve learned by talking to and watching others who have been through the cycle are as follows:

- They start another company (this is the most likely outcome)
- They start angel investing.
- They get involved on philanthropic or activist levels.
- They start consulting or get a job (unlikely but it happens).
- They tune out and fade out of their community.

In established entrepreneurial communities, this is a bit of the norm for an entrepreneur. However, these actions in non-entrepreneurial communities add value, but can often be a missed opportunity to help create, nourish and sustain an entrepreneurial community. Certainly, starting another company and or investing in other companies are a good thing, but these actions can be much more efficient when there is a proper ecosystem in place. This takes time to build.

What is an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem?

I am talking about an ecosystem that attracts and supports entrepreneur’s at every stage of their growth. A community where there is an abundance of: co-working spaces, startup accelerators, incubators, local and state support, involvement from local colleges & universities, vibrant community organizations, amazing events that celebrate this ecosystem, and clear bridges to the funding community at every stage of a company’s growth.

To me, a functioning ecosystem for entrepreneurship looks like this:

Nucleus Layer: Where idea’s, connections, partnerships, co-creations happen.

Enablers: Co-working facilities, community events (Startup Weekends, Hack-a-thons, meet-ups, association & membership events, etc..)

______________________________________________________________

Innovation Layer: Ideas go from concept to reality. Making things happen.

Enablers: Active angel & seed investing community, startup accelerators, bootcamps, incubators, etc…
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Growth Layer: Building the companies in our ecosystem – a pathway to growth.

Enablers: Active regional venture capital investment & local & state participation in financing.

______________________________________________________________

Sustainability Layer: Keeping the entrepreneurial wheel turning.

Enablers: Active & syndicated angel investing, state & local programs to facilitate and stimulate activity. University entrepreneur programs & support networks. Entrepreneurs giving back and feeding the overall ecosystem.

______________________________________________________________

Entrepreneurs that come from entrepreneurial ecosystems help to continuously plant the seeds of the next generation through mentoring, angel investment, assisting in associations or groups that support these efforts, and by ultimately launching another company.

This kind of functioning ecosystem is currently missing in Baltimore. All of this is here, but we still need to connect the dots.

Building the Ecosystem:

Brad Feld said it best in his recent post on building entrepreneurial communities, and that is that there are leaders and there are feeders. Let the entrepreneur’s be the LEADERS, and have the FEEDER’s encourage and support them. Taking the long view (as Brad says 20 years), this is definitely the right approach. This type of community doesn’t happen overnight. However, there are things we can do to accelerate the process.

So, for communities, like Baltimore, that have all of the “raw materials” right here, right now, the best thing we can do to start threading the community together is to give back and focus on the areas that need input and action. Building the layers of that ecosystem and linking them together is the hard work, and the work that takes the time.

In my opinion, this type of activity is not only what Baltimore needs, but is what this country needs, now more than ever. Simply put, the building of entrepreneurial communities keeps the economic wheel turning. On a macro level, I’m talking about economic development, job creation, etc.. We all know these things stem from the entrepreneurs who start companies, innovate in industries, and make things happen. The more support we offer the innovators, the more innovation will occur. How many jobs have been created in NYC or Silicon Valley over the last 5 years? Lots.

There are several entrepreneurial communities that already give back to the ecosystem that supported, nurtured and grew them over time. However, we need this kind of participation on a MUCH wider scale. We need it in the secondary and the tertiary markets just as much as the major ones.

How Am I Contributing Locally?

I’ve always been a doer, and so understanding, at least through my eyes, some of the challenges that we are facing in my hometown of Baltimore, its hard to complete the cycle and just sit on the sidelines to see “what happens next” in our community. There is a lot of blocking and tackling to be done in our city – and I suspect many cities all over the US and internationally.

So, what am I doing to help further develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Baltimore? Here is a start:

Baltimore Angels:

As of mid November, I’ve officially taken point and am helping to lead the Baltimore Angels group. We are a loose group of angel investors who have been active for the past 2 + years and have done a half dozen or so deals. The group just went through a slight lull in meeting due to great things happening, like the main organizer, Dave Troy, raising almost a million dollars in funding for his new startup 410Labs (disclosure: I’m an investor). The group was in need of some renewed focus and some additional structure, so thats what we are doing. In 2012, the group will be meeting every month and collaborating with other angel groups and growth stage venture capital firms, and other supporting organizations within the region to ensure we have an active angel investing function in the city / region of Baltimore.

Startup Accelerator

One of my passions is being at the intersection of ideas and watching them come into reality. Its a big reason why I named my latest entity Nucleus Ventures. I like to be close to the nucleus of ideas, where the raw energy of making something happen is taking place. The startup accelerator model is nothing new, but has gained traction all over the country and the world. Long story short, we need one in Baltimore and I am working diligently to try to make that happen in early 2012. I am hoping that we will be able to create a space and a program that will attract the best and brightest entrepreneurs to come to Baltimore and make their dreams a reality.

Greater Baltimore Technology Council

I am convinced that now more than ever there is a need and a role for a local technology council. In Baltimore, ours has been going through a large transition. We’ve had leadership changes, staff changes, and an overall change in the need the community has for the tech council. I am a co-vice chairman of the council and have been spending a lot of time helping the staff, along with other board members renew the value proposition and membership model of this organization. My hope is that the tech council will renew its value proposition to the community, and take advantage of all of the amazing inertia points that we have happening in Baltimore. The GBTC is a connector, a facilitator, and needs the support of the local community to thrive.

So, that’s my perspective on entrepreneurial ecosystems, and my take on where we stand today in Baltimore. What do you think? Am I off base? These are the things I feel need to happen in our communities to make them entrepreneurial.

I would love to hear your take. Comment away, and as always, thanks for reading.

Its been close to two months since my last post, and wow have there been some changes. I promise nothing too long winded, but let me catch you up with the highlights of the last month:

First up, if you are not already aware, I sold my company Blue Sky Factory to email marketing leader WhatCounts. After 10 years, its a wild experience to finally be an “exited” entrepreneur and have completed the cycle. I am very proud of the company we built, the presence we had in the market, and the kick ass team that I have had the fortunate experience of working with over all of the years. Every single person, past, present and future has played an important part of Blue Sky Factory.

As I mentioned in our final blog post:

It’s hard to fully express how strongly we feel toward our customers and employees. We’ve worked hard to build a profitable and thriving business and are proud of what our customers have been able to accomplish. It’s been a labor of love, and we are grateful we have had the opportunity to work with you as we developed and built Blue Sky Factory. Once again, thank you for your continued support and for joining us as we begin a new and very exciting journey.

Here are links to the video, announcements, and press:

Press:

WhatCounts announcement
Baltimore Business Journal
ClickZ

Here are two interviews I did for some additional perspective:

“After Blue Sky Factory’s Sale, Cangialosi Looks to Help Baltimore Entrepreneurial Community”

“When to Sell – A Conversation with Greg Cangialosi, Former CEO of Blue Sky Factory”

There are a few other flavors as well if you are interested on this Google search.

As a result of the acquisition, I am no longer an employee of the company and have moved to the board of directors of the combined company and will be doing some product strategy work for them on a consulting basis. Pretty exciting times to say the least! Definitely life changes.

So, what’s next?

Well, after running a company for the last decade of my life, the most sound advice I have been getting is “Take a break!!” For me, its really hard to be going 150 mph and to jump right down to 50 mph. So, the short answer is I am winding down many of my day to day affairs at Blue Sky Factory and helping to wrap some of the transition work that is part of an acquisition. As far as what’s next, I am going to give it several months before I jump back into anything serious or semi-full time. I need to clear my head, and take advantage of this opportunity in life and enjoy some time with my wife and daughter, that is just too precious of an opportunity to let fly by me.

Angel Investing:

Outside of some volunteer work I am doing with organizations I am currently involved in, the only other thing I will be actively be participating in is some angel / seed funding. I have been an active angel investor for the past 2 years and am now starting to ramp some of my activity up. If you think there is something I should take a look at, I would love to hear from you. I will also be writing a little more on this subject as I am investing within specific criteria. In the meantime, feel free to email me at gcangialosi at gmail dot com.

New Blog:

Over the next month I will also be transitioning this blog from The Trend Junkie to a new domain – cangialosi.net. I will announce it when its live but stay tuned for a complete redesign, and my attempt at writing on a regular schedule. I have learned a wealth of knowledge over the last 10 years and in particular the last 6 months. I have attempted to share a lot of my entrepreneurial experiences here on this blog, and will continue to do so in the future.

Thanks again for reading and I look forward to staying connected.

Greetings once again! As the first long awaited follow up post on entrepreneurship and bootstrapping, I wanted to first address the topic of whether or not bootstrapping a startup is right for you. Many of you who know me know that bootstrapping is my preferred method of building a business. In reality, its all I know. That said, I realize bootstrapping is not for everyone.

In this post I will cut to the chase as I have written several posts on the topic in the past. The main themes are pretty direct and are based 100% on my experience. So, let’s get down to the title of this post, is bootstrapping for you?

Tenacity Required: This is not for the faint of heart.

It’s safe to say that starting a business, any business, is not easy. Starting one with limited funds makes it that much harder. That said, many entrepreneurs, like myself, go for it without raising any outside money. However, I’d like to briefly clarify what I define as “bootstrapped,” as there seems to be some fluctuating definitions out there. To me, you truly are a bootstrapper if you:

- Did not raise a DOLLAR of investment (of any kind).
- Used existing savings or your own personal funds to launch.
- Used credit cards or existing credit vehicles to fund your business (bank loans, etc)
- Sweated out the start up phase and made it work.

You are NOT a bootstrapper if you’ve:

- Raised friends and family money (No, you didn’t bootstrap, you raised money)
- Raised angel investment, venture capital or private equity money of any kind.
- You get the point…

Bootstrapping to me means five simple, yet tough words: You Are On Your Own.

This is a position that many people are not willing to put themselves in. And believe me, I completely understand why. In many cases, you need to be willing to risk putting it all on the line, which is a lot to swallow. This varies of course depending on where you are at in your life. When we started Blue Sky Factory, I was 27, single, with a very simple lifestyle, and I had the “what do I have to lose, this is the time, lets go for it” attitude. Today, I am married with a 2 year old and a mortgage. For some folks, those factors alone are enough to reconsider entrepreneurship altogether, especially bootstrapping a business.

While there may be higher risks to bootstrapping, the good news is that today you can launch a startup very light if you are doing a tech startup or web app. Look at what Graham Lawlor’s Ultra Light Startup’s is doing in NYC and Boston. This is the modern day startup ethos. You can launch light and in more cases than not, there is no need to put it all on the line!

Be Relentless: You must BELIEVE:

There is a common trait in many of the successful entrepreneurs that I know. They act as if failure is not an option. This is a simple yet very powerful trait. The BEST entrepreneurs will work at it until they get it.

As an example, when we started Blue Sky Factory back in 2001, we were a “web shop.” Which back then translated meant we would do anything (web related) if the check cleared. If we couldn’t do it, we would find people who could. We hustled and struggled our way through the pure startup phase until there was some sustainability (i.e. revenue). It was raw, but we never stopped believing and quickly pivoted into a pure play email marketing company (we don’t build websites anymore).

The point is, although at one point we had less than $100 in the bank (yes, you read that right), we kept going, relentless, where many others would have given up, we rode the fiber that held it together and moved the ideas and the business forward. Failure to us, was not an option, and it its not to the best entrepreneurs out there. In my mind all great entrepreneurs have to be optimists, all of the time. Frankly, there is no other way to be.

So, the real question to any prospective boostrapper is as follows. Even though the landscape has made the startup barriers easier and less risky, if you do kick off a real business are you in the right frame of mind, and do you have what it takes to power through the tough times with the FULL drive that failure is not an option? Simply said, are you ALL IN?

The rabbit hole on boostrapping goes much deeper, and I plan on writing more about the subject, but that’s all I have right now. Please share your thoughts, comments, opinions, etc in the comments below, and thanks for reading.

There really is no time like the present. In today’s landscape, things are changing around us all of the time. The most successful organizations operate under a sense of urgency in order to take advantage of being ahead and staying ahead. In a world of continuous change, urgency is another critical, yet often overlooked element of growing a sustainable business. Urgency, defined as: “the state of being urgent; an earnest and insistent necessity,” is something that every successful business should live by.

They say in life, why put off tomorrow what you can do today? When you focus that towards business, the ramifications can be very risky. Think about it, in just “one extra day” a competitor can get ahead, steal your business or get an advantage over you in a situation. In “just another week,” the competitors wind up announcing the same killer feature just a few days before you did, getting all of the press and attention. And in this day and age, “another month or two” could potentially mean the rapid rise of a disruptive competitor.

In today’s business climate, the game has changed. Operating under a sense of urgency is a vital aspect of any company who wants to win. There are too many tools available now that lower the barrier to entry and create fierce competition in almost any industry. This creates a need to stay ahead and to move fast with the tasks that will give you an edge.

Need another motivation for operating under a state of urgency? How about approaching each day of business knowing that every one of your customers is getting a call from a competitor. In many cases, this is the case. This type of thinking will help keep you on edge. Protect your house.

Does your team want to win? Once again like all aspects of business, the core of operating under a state of urgency comes down to people. Getting alignment throughout your organization that leads to a state of urgency is a lot easier said than done. Slower organizations weed themselves out naturally, the pace and approach and leadership is different. If you are ok with the status quo, or the comfortable job, then you should work for one of those types of companies. Many people though, like to be challenged and thrive to be involved in new and exciting industries. And new and exciting industries are the ones that need to operate under the most extreme urgency as they are the drivers of all innovation and change. Where do you want to be?

In an effort to clearly articulate my point, here are some of the actions you see from companies who operate under a sense of urgency:

- They provider killer customer service.

- They are continuously innovating their products and services.

- They take customer feedback seriously, act on it, and are better for it.

- They are transparent with their communications and actions.

- They actively engage with customers, prospects and the larger community.

- They are involved in philanthropic causes (the world does need to be saved, and sooner rather than later).

If you operate with some urgency you will most likely always stay in the game, operate under a sense of urgency, and you will win.

What do you think? Is a sense of urgency too extreme in your eyes or do you feel the same way? Give me your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading.

As CEO of a growth company, one topic that never falls off my radar is sales. Sales is the lifeblood of every company. As our COO, Doug Broujos likes to say, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying, and no one wants to work for a company that’s not moving forward.” I couldn’t agree more, and that’s the core of why sales is critical to every business.

You may have heard the old saying, “sales solves everything.” Well, I’ve come to learn over the years that it does. When your company is selling, building momentum, and closing business, then you can do things, like grow, if you so choose. That’s how Blue Sky Factory has grown, through sales. We never raised any funding to grow either, we sell and grow through revenue generation. We do that by providing stellar customer service and powerful technology solutions. We do good work, and the word spreads.

Sales is hard. It is the front lines, it’s holding down the fort, fighting off the competition, making your case, each and every day. As a founder, I know what it takes, and I also know that the only way to scale the kind of “hustle” that stems from the founder / CEO level, is to have incredible people around you representing the company, selling your solutions, over-servicing your customers, all while continuing to deepen the relationship with your customers. This practice eventually evolves into the development of a large, vast community of evangelists that not only enjoy, but take pride in, amplifying your company’s signal. There simply is no better marketing than that.

My personal approach to sales, has always been that unless I am asked directly, I don’t sell, anyone, ever. Instead, I develop relationships and nurture them and add as much value as I can when asked or when I see an opportunity. For me, this this has paid off incredibly in terms of growth, and it will always continue to be the core backbone of any business that I personally develop. It’s a great feeling when I first speak with a prospect and learn that a trusted member of my network gave my company and I a glowing endorsement. To me, that is the ultimate business development. Be there before the sale.

Scaling Sales

I’ve also learned over the years that the “Kumbaya effect” (something that will be further articulated in another post) of word of mouth and referrals, isn’t a scalable sales model. In the sense that its only one channel, a VERY important one, but unless your are looking to be a lifestyle business, it can’t be the only one. A growth company should have many channels working towards attracting people to their sales pipeline.

As an organization grows, it becomes critically important for marketing to fill the top of the funnel with prospects, ideally qualified ones. It is then up to the sales team to engage with those folks, identify real opportunities, and bring in the customers. Sometimes, and more often than not, in order to achieve your goals you need to be aggressive on the sales front. This clearly speaks directly to the team you have in place. From what I have seen at my company and others, successful sales people have a lot going on, all of the time. This is no 40 hour work week if you want to win.

What can seem like a potentially overwhelming schedule, ie. a high volume of people to connect and follow up with, managing multiple opportunities at various stages, writing proposals, having meetings, traveling in some cases, etc., is really the regular schedule of a successful sales person. In fact, a successful sales person wouldn’t have it any other way. They thrive off of this type of schedule and activity, and they love building momentum. That said, the most important activity of a successful sales rep is their ability to manage all of that, while continuing to build the top of their funnel.

Building the Funnel

While marketing may fill the top of the funnel, its the job of sales to build their own pipeline of prospects and opportunities – ideally from both inbound and outbound channels, (though I know many organizations differ on their philosophy of inside / outside sales, etc). The importance of this is critical to building momentum and to ensure that once you have a good quarter, a good month, a good week, or a good day, that more good ones follow. This is key to a continuous flow of success. All to often though I hear about sales people who peak and valley with success all year long because the front end of the funnel never has enough time and energy put towards it. In order to win, you need a large pipeline of opportunity at every deal stage.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, the reality is, in the words of Alec Baldwin, coffee really is for closers. I’m not going to sugar coat it. Sales is hard. It takes tenacity, resilience, and a passion and motivation to succeed. If you are in sales and you don’t have these things, you will never be as successful as you can be. If your sales team lacks those traits, then you might want to take a hard look at whats going on.

Sales is a very large subject, and I realize I haven’t deep dived into everything, and there are many factors involved in successful sales, but there are some fundamentals that I have come to learn over the years.

To recap, here are 10 fundamental elements of sales:

1. Sales is critical to every organization and must be treated as such.

2. Having a great product & service helps the sale every time, but that’s not enough.

3. People buy from people (and brands) they trust. Be one of those people & brands.

4. While word of mouth and referrals are great. Never rely purely on the good will of your network.

5. Everyone in sales should strive to “be there before the sale” as often as possible.

6. Marketing fills the funnel, sales BUILDS their own funnel from that (individually).

7. Sales must never neglect the top of their funnel. This is the seed for all future success.

8. Sales is hard. It takes time, patience, resilience and dedication. You can’t be on and off from one day to the next.

9. Sales success doesn’t come in 40 hour work weeks (Though I have seen it done in much less than 40, but that’s Ninja status )

10. Sales isn’t for everyone. Coffee really is for closers.

These are just some of my thoughts. Whats your take? Am I wrong? Want to add your own flavor to this? Let me know your thoughts below.

Thanks for reading.

I recently had the opportunity to speak at this years Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. I was part of the Web2Open sessions that were organized by the Podcamp Foundation (Hats off to Whitney Hoffman), and in traditional “unconference” fashion, those of us who were asked to speak could do so on any topic we wanted.

The theme of this year’s Web 2.0 Expo was “The power of less,” and with that in mind I took this opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, get back to my roots and start talking about my experiences with entrepreneurship, starting a business, bootstrapping, and all of the lessons I have learned along the way…. so far. The Web 2.0 Expo theme was a perfect fit to “beta” a presentation I dubbed: “Bootstrapping: Building a Business Funded by Revenue.”

The Web 2.0 talk was the first step in developing a series of posts and presentations that I will be focused on throughout 2010. Though my story is still very much “in progress,” I have started several businesses, and have been building my most recent company, Blue Sky Factory, for almost 9 years. I’ve learned a wealth of lessons through my experiences building a business from the ground up with zero funding.

The Framework:

As mentioned earlier, the Web 2.0 talk was in “beta,’ as I am still very much flushing out the various topics and segments I would like to cover. As I have been thinking through things, there have been three main topic areas that seem to encompass the spirit of what I would like to talk about. They include the following:

1. Start-up Lessons

Just as it sounds, and what essentially encompasses most of the presentation below, there are oh so many start-up lessons to discuss, and every entrepreneur has their own. Sometimes, more often than not, they all have their own version of the same lesson. I plan on discussing several of the ones that I have experienced and have processed.

2. Building a team

At the end of the day, any good entrepreneur will tell you their company is only as good as its people. It is so true. Over the last 9 years there have been many different people who have joined my company, and each one of them play a key role in our operation. I plan on talking about building teams who are aligned, motivated and constantly executing.

3. Managing growth

It is often said that managing growth is simply the act of trading one set of problems or challenges for the next. There is a lot to be said for that statement. Growth isn’t easy, but if you find yourself managing it, then you are doing something right! There are a several “stages’ of growth to be discussed in a variety of topics (team, technology, infrastructure, finance, sales, etc).

Below, are the slides from the Web 2.0 talk, which tend to focus mostly on the first topic of “start-up lessons.” I would love to hear your input, or questions in the comments below. I will be continuing on this topic organically, and hope to begin to drill down on the high level topics listed above shortly.

This coming week I will again be heading to one of my favorite places on the planet, NYC. I will be attending Ad Tech on Wed and Thur, and will also be speaking on a panel at Graham Lawlor’s Ultra Light Startup’s on Thursday November 5th at 6:30 at Sun Microsystems. The event is dubbed “Email Marketing for Startups”.

I am looking forward to it and I will be joined by some incredible folks who I can’t wait to meet. The panel looks like:

Moderator:

* Maisha Walker, President of message medium and e-commerce columnist with Inc. magazine

Panelists (alphabetic order):

* Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Blue Sky Factory
* Neil Capel, Founder and CEO of SailThru
* Lisa Klieman, Vice President, Business Development at Innovyx, Inc.
* Adam Rich, Co-founder and Editor-in-chief of Thrillist

If you are coming let me know and lets be sure to link up. If you are going to be at Ad Tech and want to link up as well drop me a line. I will be roaming the exhibition floor most of the time. See you in NYC!

I am really excited about Bootstrap Maryland. When Jared Goralnick first asked me to be a part of it I hadn’t even realized he had been working on such an interesting and important event. I’ve always thought an event that brought together similar entrepreneurs who have experience building businesses outside of the most common routes, (ie. raise friend and family money, raise angel investment, raise VC, etc) would be extremely valuable to the next generation of entrepreneurs. Our region is ripe with talent, ideas, and products that are already in “the lab” and just waiting to officially “launch.”

I look forward to sharing my story and advice around building businesses with little to no funding at all. It certainly isn’t easy, but it can be done with, as Jared states “drive, brains and little creativity.” Details on the event are below, or you can click here. If you are thinking of starting a company, or already are out of the gate and are looking for some additional inspiration. Hope to see you there on May 2nd.

Bootstrap Maryland brings together young entrepreneurs and the necessary tools for running a lean and successful technology business.

At the Bootstrap Maryland Conference on May 2, 2009 you will learn how to turn your web or technology idea into a business. The presentations will cover topics such as:

* What you need (and don’t need) to get your business off the ground.
* Most products fail due to lack of marketing, not failed technology. How to get the word out inexpensively with social media, events, and creative PR
* The most relevant technologies people are using today, and ways to get the technology right the first time
* Stories, lessons learned, and discussions from young people who have built successful businesses

I rarely do this, but somehow the stars aligned where I actually spoke to 3 entirely different groups of people, 3 days in a row about social marketing and macro level trends that are happening in the marketing communications space. The audiences were as follows:

1. Technology Council leaders of North America
2. A global provider of testing & certification centers.
3. A large law firm.

This proved to be very interesting for me, because 99.9% of the time I speak to marketers. So, taking essentially the same message and applying it to the non-profit, testing & education, and legal professions proved to be interesting, and it worked.

The one nugget that I found to be the most interesting of all was that EVERYONE GETS IT (for the most part). I started every presentation with 4 key MACRO trends, the first one being that marketers finally understand, and get the fact that we are now in a two way media landscape. The batch and blast mentality of one way media is so old school, and so foreign to the modern marketer. I feel people are starting to get this on a broader level, and they are embracing it.

Why do I feel this way? There wasn’t anyone in the room at ANY of the three talks I gave that challenged or countered some of the statements and trends that clearly outline a shifting landscape of communication for organizations and businesses. In the past someone always didn’t agree, or there was big push back on some level, once we got into the details. I actually always look forward to it, because a healthy debate / friction is always good. The closest we got on a debate was the whole personal vs. company profile, mixing the two together, or not, etc. Good one for sure.

Maybe it was just that the folks I spoke with were primed and ready to hear more. Either way, as a person who goes to a ton of events and speaks to a variety of audiences, in my mind companies are beginning to adapt. More and more marketers and organizations are applying more social marketing tactics and mediums to their outreach programs. Its not just marketers that get it either, the “organization” as a whole is starting to get it. This is good, because as many of you well know, it is happening. We are in a world of dialog marketing, so embrace it.

Would love to hear your thoughts below.

I can’t stress how much respect I have for Tony Hseih. I had the pleasure of watching him give the opening keynote at SXSW last week. His message is very powerful. Zappos “gets it.” Video highlights of the keynote and his slides are below. Enjoy:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zappos – SXSW – 3-14-09

View more presentations from zappos.