Sunday, May 03, 2009 7:17 am  

We continue the music and networking theme with an old friend , Marcie Vogel Frahm and her cohort from way back, Noah Cole. I first met Marcie back in late ‘90s when we  both worked with Lee Crumpton and the Home Grown Music Network.  

Even back then, Marcie was a networking dynamo and was brought into the HGMN largely for her social media prowess and networking savvy. Remember, this was over 10 years ago. Back then, networking online was limited to chat rooms and email lists…  

Listen to Marcie and Noah Cole talk about the early days of the internet, why they voluntarily networked for Phish, how their efforts to build a loyal community of music fans paid off, and also, how they helped shift some of their network’s focus to community service through the charitable works of the Mockingbird Foundation.  

We’ve also posted the newest installment of our ongoing discussion of the all time classic, Napoleon Hill’s Think & Grow Rich!

Saturday, April 11th, 2009 6:03 am

The music industry has been networking online longer than any other industry in our economy. Makes sense. After the scientists, colleges and universities put the early technology in place which ultimately evolved into today’s internet, music freaks at the college level began using the computer technology at their fingertips to communicate with other music fans from other places.  

Over the next few weeks we will visit with some of the music industry's early online pioneers with a focus on their networking activities. In other words, how they used the internet in the early days to promote their interests and build a platform or audience for their music and music related businesses.  

This week we feature very special guest Lee Crumpton of Leeway's Home Grown Music Network. Lee started networking online back in 1995, representing hundreds of bands and helping distribute and sell their recorded music.  

During our talk Lee gives his fascinating perspective on how the internet has changed the music business, practical tips on building a business online, and the inside story of his “All Balls” Backstage Pass for President Obama’s recent Inauguration Extravaganza in Washington DC!

March 25th, 2009, 5:55 am

This week we shift gears from our “BNI Author Extravaganza,” featuring BNI Members who have published books, to two BNI Members from the wild and wacky world of Real Estate. Both are having a great year and both rely exclusively on word-of-mouth networking to build and sustain their business!

We are also in production for an upcoming series that looks at networking online in the music industry. Although mainstream business is currently on fire with online networking through Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter, music biz insiders were the first private sector community to experiment with the internet after cyberspace was pioneered and nurtured into existence by the Academic and Scientific communities in the 1980’s.

Our goal is to reveal several little known stories of how networking online launched the meteoric rise of many current music and entertainment biz megastars, and the lessons business people from any industry can use to create their own success, networking both online and face to face.

So that’s it for now. Please check out my blog for the latest material to be used in the Power Team/Target Market Book with Dr. Misner, and for daily updates, please Follow Me on Twitter

March 9th, 2009

This week’s FAST180 is the first of the pre-recorded programs we talked about in the prior journal entry. And it’s a doozy! Here’s the deal: Nate and myself, along with our partner in success, Coach Toy Henson, have a standing phone conversation every Saturday morning where we talk about the greatest self improvement book of all time, Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”  

We are having so much fun with the calls, and gaining value as well, that we decided to go public with the recordings! As you will hear, these calls are intimate, revealing and hopefully, informative.  

Join us as we take a chapter by chapter approach to our roundtable discussion. We invite your comments and insight into the stories, quotes and lessons we cover in this special “Think and Grow Rich” series of FAST180 presentations!

February 24, 2009, 8:16 am

As we continue to learn about technology as well as what works and what doesn’t, the FAST180 Webcasts continue to evolve. Latest development: we are going to record the webcasts in advance and post them at our regularly scheduled time every Wednesday night, at 6pm Pacific.

Making the switch gives us greater time flexibility to attract more special guests to the conversation. In addition, we will cranking up the volume on production, with special presentations throughout the week!  

Twitter has become a key piece of our platform building efforts and will play an even more prominent role going forward. In addition to our email distribution group, new material will be announced on Twitter.  

And the more things change, the more they stay the same. We are smack dab in the middle of our BNI Author Extraveganza and the hits just keep coming! Next two webcasts feature a couple of BNI and Referral Institute All-Stars, as well as co-authors of books with Dr. Ivan Misner.  

This week we are joined by Hazel Walker co-author of “Networking and Sex, It’s Not What You Think!” and then next week, Michelle Donovan of “The 29% Solution.”  

In upcoming weeks, we will also feature BNI Realtors who are having huge success despite the current economy, as well as an interactive training on how to use Twitter to maximize your networking efforts.

So there's lots to look forward to as we ask the collective question: "Are YOU ready for a FAST180??

January 31, 2009, 7:27 am

Two steps forward, one step back… a THOUSAND apologies to everyone for two tecnical difficulties on last week’s webcasts. Yes, things started out great, an awesome Tuesday night conversation with Personal Branding Expert and Social Media Rock Star Dan Schawbel. Inspiring, informative and fun, Dan is our #1 Internet Guru and we had a blast chatting with him!

The problem? The recording didn’t work! OUCH! Our in-house quality control engineer back tracked the malfunction to human error, and yes, I’m the human… argh! Oh well, they say it’s not what happens, it’s how you react that counts! So I’m doing my best to build a bridge and get over it.

Times like this remind me of “A Lifetime of Riches,” the biography of Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill. Wow, what a wild story. Not only was Nap’s life a roller coaster, the twists and turns were hard and fast. More than anything else, he succeeded because of his persistence through adversity.

Example: At one point, his entire collection of typed interviews from years of research for the book was destroyed in a fire. Remember, this was way before computers and easy to use back up systems.

Rather than do what the vast majority of people would do, give up, Nap took it on the chin and started over… whew! So just thinking of his example under much worse conditions puts my techno blunder into perspective, lightening the load in the process.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Wednesday night webcast with Bob Nicoll, author or “Remember the Ice,” got completely mucked up with another recording snafu. Unlike the problem with Dan Schawbel’s show, which we didn’t know about until long after the call was over, we knew the recording wasn’t working before the Wednesday show started.

Also, Bob was having trouble getting through to the moderator line, and wouldn’t have been online with us to start the show had we started. So, we pulled the plug and rescheduled Bob for Wednesday, February 11th, and we are very much looking forward to having him on the webcast!

So there you have it. Sad story or comedy of errors?You decide. For our part, we hope all our fumbles are behind us, but we know better. Listen, things happen and we roll with the punches. Our motto: “Expect adversity, project enthusiasm, keep moving!”

On that note: The webcast with Lori Chance was great and yes, the recording worked! Another BNI Author and Business Coach, Jeanna Pool, will join us this week to talk about her book, “When Your Small Business is YOU™,” with Bob Nicoll’s rescheduled appearance the following week.

Looks like our FAST180 Authors Extravaganza will continue for at least a few more weeks with announcements coming soon on which authors will be joining us as we firm up the dates.

In other news, the Power Team book continues to roll. Check out the past four updates to my blog for a sneak preview of the material as it takes shape.

We are very excited about all the new Personal Development and Business Training materials from our sponsor, iLearningGlobal as well as improving the lines of communication among our FAST180 community by using Twitter. If you not yet on Twitter, click here for more info.

OK amigos, that’s a wrap. Thanks for your flexibility and understanding that this project is a work in progress. As a wise man once said, "it’s more about learning from the journey than basking in the rewards of the destination…"

Are YOU ready for a FAST180? 

January 21, 2009, 8:25 am

I am very excited about the next few FAST180 webcasts! Why? We are featuring a variety of BNI folks who have written books. Bottom line: helping BNI Authors get the word out in support of their creative efforts is the sort of warm and fuzzy group hug that nourishes the networking soul!

On our own publishing news: My years of music journalism helped me network into an awesome situation as co-author of Relix - The Book, which be coming out later this year. I will be writing in detail on the Wordpress Blog about the wild and wacky sequence of events that led to where that project is today, but for now, just knowing that this book is going to see the light of day pumps energy into the creative (and entrepreneurial) juices here at the Anytime/Anywhere Studios!

While the Relix book is basically done and in the hands of the publisher (Back Beat Books / Hal Leonard Publishing), the Power Team book co-authored by Dr. Misner is still under construction. On the front burner: we are currently cleaning up some terms and definitions, most notably "Network," "Contact Sphere," and "Power Team." Plus - I posted the first graphic to apper on the Blog - a new chart illustrating the relationhips among the terms and concepts being discussed. Wanna know more - click here!

Otherwise, we continue to find the challenges of the current economy bringing out our best on a daily basis, reinforcing the value of helping others do the same... are YOU ready for a FAST180?

January 5th, 6:23 am

Happy New Year – I hope your 2009 is off to a good start!

Me, I’m doing great… Marcia and I made it official and got married on New Year’s Eve! It was an awesome, very intimate ceremony and we are both very excited about our future together. As Judith Joyce, our friend who performed the ceremony, said, “Let the games begin!”

Are you ready for a FAST180?

Meanwhile, back at the Anytime/Anywhere Studios, I’ve had an opportunity to continue exploring ‘social media,’ with a focus on Twitter. Bottom line: Twitter is like mass text messaging a bunch of people all at the same time.

Who are these people? People who have made a choice to ‘follow’ your posts. Of course, the person being followed is notified when someone begins to follow them and also has the option of returning the favor and following the person following them. Sound confusing? It’s really not.

Wanna check it out? Click here to follow me on Twitter.

OK, here’s the big news: I’ve decided to separate this blog (which I am now going to refer to as my Journal) from the blog on Wordpress. Why? I want to crank up the volume on the Wordpress blog with less personal information and more useful networking info for the folks who check it out. More like straight ahead magazine articles. The current post on Wordpress “Internet Guru – The Search is On!” is a perfect example. Check it out and I think you will see what I mean.

This journal will continue to be more personal, documenting the completion of the upcoming Power Teams book while building the platform for it’s launch as a #1 Bestseller.

So what’s left to do before the book is done? Good question… thanks for asking!

Power Team Book

I completed a rough draft a few months ago and have been working with several people who are reading the material, completing the online training, putting the techniques into practice and working with me one on one over the phone as their Power Team coach.

The feedback I’ve been getting has been phenomenal! In addition to tips on making the material as user friendly as possible, digging into nitty gritty details on each person’s business category has helped flesh out numerous details that will be of great value to the ultimate readers of the book.

I am also adding more stories to breathe life into the concepts. Some of the stories are my own, others are from the folks currently working with me on this “beta” stage of the project. Did you ever hear the cliché: facts tell, stories sell? We’ll see what the final draft looks like, but for now, I’m getting a good feeling that these real life examples will help convey the book’s message. 

So as of now, it looks like the material will be finished by the end of March. I also have to put together updated PowerPoint Tutorials to reflect the changes I am making in the book. So hopefully, if all goes well, we’ll have something to market by Summer!

Twitter

OK, back to Twitter for a moment. Like everything else in business, Twitter is all about numbers. Not dollars, numbers. As in, how many people are following your updates. And by the way, the updates must be 140 characters (not words, CHARACTERS) or less. The more people following you, the greater value you have as a “content provider.”

I started right in the middle of the holidays and am up to 18 people following me. In turn, I’m following 13. Several of the people following me are completely unknown to me. I have no idea how they found my posts.

All I know, is that I’ve been getting an email when someone ‘opts in’ to follow my updates and in the process, I have a chance to review their profile to see if I want to follow them. In addition to 140 characters or less about who and what they are, you can see how many people they are following and how many people are following them.

Some folks have big numbers. Thousands and tens of thousands. Interesting stuff and I’m excited about having stepped into the ring and swinging away… Imagine what will happen to my numbers if someone who has 30,000 people following them, and posts a Twitter update telling his (or her) followers to check out my material. Can you say: BIG numbers?

FAST180 Webcasts

I am very excited about our upcoming schedule for the FAST180 webcasts. To kick off the New Year we are featuring a very special guest, Larry Koller, who is an Insurance Expert, Area Director for BNI in New Jersey, and one heckuva networker!

Larry is going to be sharing some of his experiences and insight into specific ways people in the Insurance business can jump start their referrals in 2009.

Not in the Insurance business? OK, let me ask you this: Do you network with someone in the Insurance business? If yes, this material will help you help them. If no, you will be armed with great ammunition to show someone in the Insurance game how you and the rest of your BNI Chapter can help them build their business.

We will also translate the tips into other businesses. That’s right YOUR business! Anyone on the webcast will be able to email us with their specific business category and we will do our best to share some insight into adapting the concepts and techniques for your business. Bottom line: Please join us!

Looking forward, there are so many things going on… over the next few weeks we will be returning to our ongoing series on LinkedIn. Also on the schedule, several BNI members who have published a book, and we are excitied to hear their story and promote their good work!

We will also be weaving in a few very special guests from the music industry, to talk about their experiences networking online and generating income with intellectual property from a music and publishing perspective.

Like I said, there’s a lot going on! Find out where the road to #1 leads us, next time when our adventure in networking continues…

December 22, 6:45 am

The final webcast for 2008 is in the books! Now we get a two week break to enjoy the Holidaze and make plans for the New Year.  

Like a lot of people right now, I’m under the gun to make some good things happen in 2009. While 2008 had many highlights, it has also been…, shall we say, a “character builder!” Bottom line: lots of folks are getting their asses kicked financially in the current economy. As they say, “this too shall pass.” Comforting? Maybe. After all, the same logic applies to kidney stones as well… OUCH!   

Sick humor aside, you don’t have to listen too closely to hear the stress in peoples’ voices. Blinding flash of the obvious: times are tough. If not for you, then for someone you know.

OK, let’s keep the chin up. Things are going to turn around. And the more time and energy invested into the solution, the faster change will happen. Are you ready for a FAST180? As collective wisdom says “It isn’t what happens that counts, it’s how you react.” OK, sounds good, but what is the best reaction to the current economy?  

For me it starts with finishing up a few misc. projects that have been lingering on the back burner for a while. Case in point, a book I just completed with my co-author Toni Brown. Toni was the longtime Editor and publisher of Relix, a music magazine based out of New York City that evolved from a hand typed newsletter for tape traders of Grateful Dead bootleg recordings to connect and trade tapes back in the early 1970’s into a top shelf music magazine with international distribution, a record label, merchandise division and rabid readership that loves live music. It really is a great story and the book is a very visual retrospective of Relix early years.  

Toni has really done all the heavy lifting in this project and my hat is off to her! Same with Ed, Toni’s husband. Ed’s doing all the layout work and is truly crafting a masterpiece! We are in the final stages of sending the finished manuscript and layout to the publisher (BackBeat Books/Hal Leonard Publishing), which will be sent off in a matter of days. Toni’s done a great job and I am very excited to see the finished product!

The Relix book is four color ink from cover to cover with tons of great rock and roll photos, articles, interviews and artwork from Relix first 25 years. Can you say: “Eye Candy?” Distribution will not only include the bookstores but also stores that sell musical equipment, reaching our hard core music freak target market with laser like precision!

So for me, I will finally have a new product to sell (other than real estate) to diversify my income streams. Don’t get me wrong, I write because I love writing and will always find a creative outlet to wreak my personal brand of literary havoc, but the business of intellectual property is my focus for 2009. I just get excited about books and all the side projects that spin off in unforeseen directions.  

So marketing the Relix book is on my to-do list. Fortunately, my co-author Toni is a high profile musician on the live music/festival scene and she is, pardon the pun, jamming on this thing full time!

The book is scheduled to launch in the 3rd quarter of next year. I need to get busy now on building some strategic relationships to support the book selling campaign.

I’m going to start with two old friends who have been in the music biz full time for many years. Lee Crumpton is the founder of Leeways’ Homegrown Music Network, an awesome marketing and merchandise fulfillment service that has helped hundreds of independent touring bands (usually 200 shows a year) sell CDs and other merch to keep their act on the road.

I will also speak with Mark Huff, a phenomenal singer/songwriter who has opened for musical icons Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and many, many more.

Both contacted me within days of signing up for MySpace a month or two ago. While we’ve exchanged emails, I haven’t had a good opportunity to call and say hello. That’s gonna change in the next few days.

These days, ‘social networking’ and online marketing are the big buzzwords in the world of business. Lots of people (like me) are taking a serious look at this stuff for the first time, diving in head first with LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

Guess what? Musicians and record companies have doing the cyber dance for over a decade! In a lot of ways, the music industry was the first private sector group to start networking online, after the scientists, academics, and computer nerds got the thing rolling in the early ‘80s.

So I guess I hear myself saying that the FAST180 is going to feature some of these music biz insiders to share what they’ve learned, and the mistakes they’ve made, building their businesses online.

Now I’m excited! Where’s the phone? I’m ready to make some calls…check back soon and find out how the conversations went, next time when our adventure in networking continues…

December 14th, 2008 – 5:42 am

I’ve always enjoyed the “Holidaze!” You know what I mean, the week before Xmas thru the first week of the New Year when you just can’t get any work done. Call it “time off.” Call it a vacation. Call it whatever you want. For me, the Holidaze is a three to four week break from the regular routine to do something out of the ordinary.

In years past I’ve done a bit of traveling, and most recently, I’ve used the Holidaze to crank out some high quality verbage in the form of two books, which you’ll be hearing more about in the weeks to come.

Right now my focus is Holidaze 2008… where to put the energy as we wrap up a very challenging year and look for opportunity in 2009?

If all goes well, ’09 will see various projects we’ve been working on, in some cases for several years, finally begin to pay off. I guess I’ll save the details for later. After all, we still have one week left before the Holidaze set in and business grinds to a halt, including the webcasts that would fall on Xmas Eve and New Year's Eve. We'll take those two weeks off and come back ready to rock on January 7th!

In the mean time, our new series on getting started with online networking using LinkedIn.com has been a step in the right direction. We’ve attracted larger and larger audiences and the feedback I get from people who have been on the webcasts, or tapped into the archived recordings, has been really favorable.

Right now we are simply laying the groundwork. Early next year we are going to start actively networking during the webcasts and some of the folks in the FAST180 community will make money as a result. Get your attention? Stay tuned! Trust me, sparks are gonna fly!

This week will be our 10th webcast. And yes, we have a long way to go. Right now we are still a work in progress on just about every level. Our website is a home made job I slapped together with some duct tape and chewing gum just to get our cyberspace launch off the ground… lots of improvements to make before we are even close to a finished look with operational functionality.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy with the fact that we at least have a website, a place to promote and access the weekly webcasts, as well as our blogs. It’s a good start. Now we can only get better from here.

Same with promotion. We need to do a better job on getting the word out. And finally, our ‘on air’ timing is getting better all the time, but again, there’s always room for improvement.

The vision is that Nate and I have an ongoing conversation, every Wednesday night, to talk about networking. Sometimes with a special guest, others just talking to each other. Last week was the first time we did the webcast without a guest and I see more of that going forward.

The reason? I think Nate and I can share some valuable insight and experiences with our guests, and each other. Our 20 year age difference (I’m 48 and Nate’s 28) creates a natural, almost generational, dynamic, hitting any given topic from somewhat different, yet complimentary angles.

But make no mistake, there’s lots of common ground. We both embrace BNI’s Giver’s Gain philosophy and have an unshakable tendency to recognize opportunity in our daily lives and network whenever possible.

Bringing out those perspectives and weaving together the best of both to improve our lives and our finances, is the material we strive to create on the FAST180.

That leads us to this next webcast, which will be another first. Last week we asked all the people on the webcast to open a LinkedIn account and begin creating their profile before joining us for this week’s show.

This week we will work on those LinkedIn profiles as a group, together online, with lots of Q&A.

We will also import email addresses to find people you already know with LinkedIn profiles, and cover how to join a LinkedIn BNI Group, make contact and start doing this thing called ‘Social Networking.’

And if we have time, we will open the door to the world of blogging. Our focus will be on Wordpress.com and how blogging can greatly enhance your social networking productivity on LinkedIn.

OK, so there's one more week to grind away before the Holidaze roll into town and the daily planner flies out the window...  now is the time to set the stage for a fast start in ’09. Not just individually, but as a community. Are YOU ready for a FAST180?

I plan to talk to as many of my friends, family and business associates as possible. My goal is to get a firsthand update on how everyone is doing and compare notes on how we can help each other in the New Year. Networking together, all things are possible!

So I guess that’s it for now. Check back next time to find out if I have any luck, when our adventure in networking continues…   

December 8th, 2008 – 6:59 am