From this humble beginning:

To this less humble stage:

There yet?

Not sure what or where there is, but I keep practicing.
Results are coming. Those are proof of improvement and some smatter of success.

A coworker asked me to donate artwork for a fund raiser.
FLickr folks looking for me to sketch their portrait.
Twitter buds as well.

All of those things aren’t where I’m headed. They are rewards that come with continued practice.

Some results, well, they’re humbling. Being asked to sketch is humbling as well.

What are you practicing?

Blogging? Speaking? Crafting?

Are you working on it consistently? Slacking? Complaining about it?  Chris Brogan reminded me about the value of practice and why we should respect the privilege of it. (1)

Tell me about it! Share with me! You shouldn’t brag unprompted but sharing rocks and I’m here to brag for you.

(1) Chris Brogan Practice.Similar Posts:

• Saving my sanity one sketch at a time
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Expectations

There’s a sign in the exam room. Listed are the doctor of the day, the nurse practitioner on duty, and the RNs, and even the x-ray tech. Names on my sketch were changed to avoid privacy issues.

The sign has a date. It indicates who, that day, is on duty. A patient, like me, knows the names of each person I expect to see in that room. This is freeing and comforting.

Lettering is an easy to read font using black letters on white. Each person, on their initial entry into the room, clarified who they were, and reiterated the names of anyone I’d not met yet. This allowed both matching names to faces and reinforced expectations.

Each staff member added details to those expectations. The person taking me into the room explained who would be in next and why. That continued through the entire visit.

The x-ray tech was on board as well. Introducing herself as she came in, she explained where we were headed and why.

Overall, the visit exceeded my past experiences. It was all about setting expectations.

Are you setting expectations?

Are they clear and follow a sequence?

Is there enough detail?

What about you?

Have you run into situations where things weren’t clear? A restaurant? A doctor’s office? The bank?

How did you handle the lack of expectations being set or was it reversed with excellent communication?

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Narrow Your Focus

Hear me now?

Apple didn’t get to the top by the shotgun approach. Neither will your business.

Pizza your speciality? Then don’t be a menu expert.

The photo shows the dessert menu from a local restaurant. They specialize in Italian style bar food. They’re dang good at it.

No money was wasted on a fancy dessert menu.

Those dollars are being spent on fresh ingredients, and making some kick-ass desserts to go with the pastas.

Will I visit again? Yes. And not because the menus rocked.

Will I buy Apple again? Yes. Not because they make an OS to satisfy everyone or solve every problem, but because they focus on what they do best.

What’s your ace in the hole? Are you focusing on it?

As a consumer, what’s your favorite small business? Do they focus on their strengths?

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The Ask.

Hundreds of emails fill your inbox.

Many are ads, coupons, and all contain an invitation.

They ask you to buy, submit, share, or visit.

Twitter made it personal.

Now companies can reach you in real time and directly.

Smashburger reached out to me via Twitter. They asked if I’d like to come back. (1)

I said yes, and they arranged to send coupons via email.

The Ask was done.

The hard part is next.

Delivering.

Visiting Smashburger was a pleasure.

Staff were ready to take our order, able to answer questions, and led us to decisions on our purchase.

The young man behind the register gladly substituted Swiss for American on the Ultimate Cheese, and got the toppings right. He was patient with my wife, and discussed her options through to an order.

Speed of service was still solid, and this is months after their opening. Food was promptly and courteously delivered to our table.

Follow up was solid with repeat visits to check on us, including following up on a milkshake being handmade and bringing ice water. This is important considering the drinks are self serve.

Ask/Deliver is critical for all businesses. If you’re going to do one, do the other.

What’s been your experience?

Do companies (brands) that ask things of you deliver when you take them up? Was that burger worth the trip out or did the coupon provide a way to write them off? How about that pitch on Twitter to come down for a drink? Did you regret it?

1. My wife and I were invited to a social media preview night, and received free food, t-shirts, and face time with the Smashburger head honcho.

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Don’t Bore the Customers

Old school says people visit your shop, blog, or store because they are after a product. That could be a blanket, a bit of wisdom, or these days, an e-book. Sure those are the goods they take home, but repeat customers don’t just come for the milk and eggs.

Give them an experience

Want me in the door again? Put a story in my hands to tell my friends. Great case study is Sauce Magazine’s annual Saucy Soirée.

Restaurants get one evening to wow the masses, folks like me that can’t visit every restaurant in town. They don’t bring burgers and french fries.

Mexican Martinis with Chocolate Chip Cookies? I’ll be talking about that for weeks. The picture above doesn’t do it justice.

Baileys’ Chocolate Bar presented these not to showcase a single menu item, they have dozens. This drink is a story about who they are – creative, original, and willing to have fun with food.

Make it easy to share

Baileys’ came prepared for conversation. Serving the drink, they gave up the ingredient list, including chocolate vodka and tequila. The owner answered questions, shook hands, and invited people to visit. He asked people to email him personally about coming to the grand opening.

Product board on one side, plaque on the other, and one more thing? Twitter account information with hashtag! Folks were invited to tweet about the tasting, and to the Baileys’ folks.

Promise them more

You’ve rolled out the Mexican Martini. Taste buds were tingled. The Twitter pics go wild. And they forget you a minute later.

Baileys’ gave out menus, business cards, and pointed people to the Twitter account and website. The owner promised the grand opening of their newest restaurant with a sneak peak of hand made salted caramel infused ice cream. Pow.

But I’m not a restaurant

You are a storyteller though! Or you can be.

Nail down what your story is.

Are you a tee shirt shop or a place for people to find themselves in their clothes? Restaurant or place to indulge their cupcake fantasies? Are you blogging or are you opening our eyes about marriage, Mexico or martinis!

Give them something to remember the story.

Encourage them to share photos of what’s on the shelf. Got hats? Give them a way to embed those photos, take their own, or even samples or miniature versions! Samples or micro size versions make it easy to share an experience.  Is your blog ready to be shared and bookmarked or have something folks can walk away with? Gapingvoid allows for all this and yet still sells prints.

Draw people back

Great reads, fun tees, and tasty treats blow their minds. One visit though needs to feel like a first visit of many.

Preview the new design, recipe or venue.  Bloggers don’t be shy and give readers a heads up on future topics and projects.  A great way to do this is a video.  Another successful technique is participation.

Woot sells things, cool things, and they push customers to vote on products and deals.  Got ideas? People always have opinions. Get them.

The Broad Brush

It’s me, Todd, giving you my view, insight, and experiences on business, social networking and media, and tech fun. The Broad Brush isn’t about perfect copy, great SEO or finding the coolest videos to share. I want you to see the world through my eyes and life.

Each person’s walk through life gives them a different view. We miss some things, and yet seem more than others know. Hopefully you’ll come here and learn to share, discover, maybe pick up a new skill or two.

Share - Subscribe via RSS or get it delivered via email or click the buttons below!

Come back for more – coming soon is the Twitter in 15 minutes/day video series; insights from WordCamp St. Louis and Show Me The Blog Photography events.

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Quick video review of Michael Daehn’s book, Internet Marketing for Newbies.

This book targets those just getting started with online networking and marketing. It’s based on Michael’s expertise in marketing, a straight forward approach to the subject matter.

I hope you enjoy the video.

You can buy this book on Lulu, Internet Marketing for Newbies.

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Borders opened a store a mile from my house and I was excited. Amazon still wasn’t my #1 choice for buying books, and Borders has a cafe.

Books weren’t all! Borders brought back a music store to the mall and a more reputable source than megastores for cards, posters, and board games. Locals celebrated.

Fast forward to April 2011. Borders is going through bankruptcy. Stores are being shutdown across the United States. Days ago the Borders store in the attached photo is devoid of books and much else. All that remains is shelving and and odd assortment of CDs, DVDs, and reading glasses, and common checkout counter items.

What happened to Borders? Is it happening to all brick and mortar book stores?

That debate is going strong over on Quora  - Why is Barnes and Noble performing well as a business while Borders has filed for bankruptcy.

Mark Mark Evans, former Director of Merchandise Planning & Analysis at Borders, had a lot to say.  Here are a few highlights from the summary:

• Failure to properly invest in and develop an internal internet sales channel
• Bad leases (too expensive per square foot)
• Borders had a large compact disc business
• Over-investment in inventory
• Inefficient supply chain systems
• Poor branding strategy (B&N got Starbucks!)

Mark expounds on those in his answer, including being careful to note his experience ended a couple of years ago.

I can’t vouch for all of the items on the list, but Borders was king of the book stores in the St. Louis metro area for several years. The stores were often large and where available had room on two floors.

Inventory included a wide selection of music and movies. That selection seemed wonderful to me and others with the closing of all local music stores.

Perhaps all that inventory would have been a boon if it was targeted. The music and movies covered a wide spectrum and it wasn’t uncommon to see CDs and DVDs ending up on the discount racks over time.

The emergence of Amazon and follow on expansion to the biggest online retailer didn’t help. Gone was the need to visit the book store and hope it was in stock. Apple and the iTunes Music Store drove down the need to have rows and rows of music covering all genres.

Would Borders have done markedly better with slimming, trimming, and targeting? Maybe.

Would they ever be my number one store for book purchases again? No. Not unless they’d have joined the online storefront battle in a big way.

Please jump over to Quora and read through the discussion. It’s interesting and enlightening. Mark Evans shares an eyeful.

Also, I want to know your opinions on Borders, bankruptcy and bashing them.

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Someone is watching you

Datasift and Twitter have entered into a deal for your tweets. Datasift bargained for the whole fire hose of data. If you tweet and it’s public, they’re recording it.

Big data? That’s what @nik calls what they store at Datasift. So what can Datasift do with all this data? Just about anything.

Mentioned in the interview conducted by Robert Scoble are a few key sift, sorting, and search possibilities:

• massive geo-location searching and sorting – imagine being able to put hands on all of the tweets from Japan during the earthquake and tsunami. Imagine taking that down to a city on the coast.
• capturing football scores of all the games across the world – as the goals are scored!
• how about all of the photos taken during the ball drop on New Years Eve – now take that up a notch and include only the ones geo-tagged from Times Square.

All of these are possible not just in history but in real time. Datasift didn’t just contract with Twitter for their fire hose but with several other social networks. Layered on top are deep connections with ranking services such as Klout.

How do I feel about this?

I love the idea that all this data is available in one place to search, analyze and share. I also see the flip side.

You’ve seen the TV shows where the guy at a computer pulls up all of the images from traffic cams and such? Imagine, without a warrant, probable cause, or even a crime, that any agency can track your history on the large scale and follow you live as you move about the city.

Sure there are some ways individuals could do this now, but they’re limited by the same search tools that you can somewhat avoid. The average criminal doesn’t have the volume this tool will provide.

I’m thinking of become a private detective. Ha. I can follow you anywhere through not just your information but a flexible search programming language.

Okay. Enough of my rant.  How do you feel about it? Dangerous? Epic? Did you just love Nik’s voice?

Cheers and watch what you share.

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Where real people interact with virtual angels!Similar Posts:

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at which point he leans in to tell me I'm not up on the latest tech

I’m a tech blogger without the latest gadgets. I confess; it’s always been that way.

Surprised? It’s not as common as you might believe from all the blogging done about technology, gadgets and the like. Only a handful of bloggers get early or preview release copies of apps and and iPads.

Feeling guilty about that is just sill then isn’t it? I had my doubts the other night talking to B.B.. (shown above)

B.B. arrived at the tweetup and immediately came over.

“I have a serious question to ask you,” he said.

“Go ahead sir, ” I responded.

“Do you have the iPad 2 yet?”

“No,” I said as I looked down, shaking my head.

“Well, you’re behind then. My grandmother has an iPad 2.”

BAM! Immediate ‘tech have not’ guilt hit me. Brought down by a boy the age of my granddaughters.

We sat down to chat further. He explained how his grandmother had just purchased and iPad 2 and was already a wiz. He wanted to know why I didn’t have one yet.

The answer? SxSW sucked my wallet dry for a couple of weeks. That coupled with a lack of immediate need to own one had made it a no brainer to not stand in line.

I took a step down in my young friend’s eyes but I’m over that now. Talking with other geeks, the consensus is that it’s no crime to wait. That and the fact there is plenty to blog about in general means one can stay relevant without constant spending.

How about you? What’s your opinion? What’s your practice? Do you keep up?

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