I’ve been building up a large collection of random thoughts and sticking them in the reserves for future posts, but I truthfully haven’t had the enthusiasm to write on here for quite some time (many reasons, some of which I’ll lay out below).  It’ll be easier for me to just do one atrociously long, disorganized post that clears the slate, rather than reflecting and redeveloping thoughts I had months ago.  You have been warned.

For those who haven’t yet developed internet-onset ADD and can make it through this entire assortment of musings, I salute you.  Here we go:

• The most time-consuming project I have been working on over the last several months is Tim Ferriss’ next book.  It’s been a long and tedious process, but I’m extremely proud to have been a part of it.  Once it’s all finished and is about to be released, I’ll share some fun stories about the process of making it, as well as some of my results from testing.  But for now, all I can say is: (1) I have a deeper respect for any author who can stomach writing a big book and getting it published, and (2) I am beyond excited to see how it’s received.

• One of the reasons I stopped writing on here was because I revisited my archives.  My beloved readers (that’s you!) have been kind enough to sing this site’s praises, but frankly, I was put off by quite a few of the things I’ve written.  It was kind of like reading an essay that you wrote back in middle school.  A part of you enjoys the naive enthusiasm, another part of you thinks “Christ, this can’t be me… Is it?  Damnit, my name is on this.”  As a result of this evaluation period, I started noticing a lot of blogs that seemed more like jaded Yelp reviewers, writing about trivial nonsense.  And I saw a lot of myself in their writing.  I’m very privileged to sit around and talk about fun marketing and cool receipts at restaurants (Not that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for those topics by any means — my Twitter feed is a testament to this).  But going forward, I’m going to keep working on becoming a better filter of my own content on here.  The posts that have resonated most with me and others are the ones where I’ve been reflecting on the topic for months.  I want to try to maintain that personal level of quality as much as possible.  I’m not promising brilliance obviously; just a bit less impulse behind my writing.

• A few of my policies are changing this year.  First, I will be saying “no” A LOT more.  Up until now, I’ve jumped at damn near every opportunity that seemed like a fun / interesting / good learning experience.  It was well-intentioned yet semi-reckless behavior that finally caught up with me. Several months ago, I bit off way more than I could chew, and that lead to me feeling constantly overwhelmed and scrambling to get things done.  A big part of this has definitely been my approach, which has always been: feel the pressure, then get it done.  That mentality has reached its limitations, and I realized I’m definitely not as good at staying organized with a variety of tasks as I once thought I was.  And in spite of what several friends and colleagues have advocated, I’m not into outsourcing.  I prefer to do the things I’m hired for (a novel concept, I know).  But juggling too many things all at once has taken its toll.  So from now on, I’m going to tackle a couple projects at at time, not several.

• I did a little bit of consulting for awhile, but that is a no-go after this year.  I’m 24 for chrissakes, I’m still dumb in more ways than I can count.  I have a few solid experiences under my belt that I’m happy with, but it’s not enough to build a house on.  Plus, consulting sucks.  It really does.  You’re not learning, you’re just regurgitating lessons on what you’ve been lucky enough to succeed with or (even worse) talking about what’s worked for other people.  No more.

• Word-of-mouth is tough, but I still think it’s the best strategy to pursue.  If your product or service isn’t being shared, perhaps the problem doesn’t lie with the people you are chasing after.  Start asking yourself “Why isn’t this good enough” instead of “Why aren’t people eating what we’re trying to shove down their throats.”

• I could not be more bored by Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and Youtube views.  They do not mean anything.  They are low-hanging fruit, not metrics for success.

• My favorite passage from What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars was about how the greatest investors (Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, etc.) all have contradicting advice on how to make money: “If imitating the pros was supposed to make you rich and not imitating them was supposed to make you poor, then each one of these guys should have lost all his money because none of them imitated each other.  They all should be flat broke because they very often did things opposite of each other.  It finally occurred to me that maybe studying losses was more important than searching for some Holy Grail to making money.”  So many of us search for the easy route to making money, then abandon ship when things get too hard.  There are countless ways to make a lot of money, only a few ways you can lose it, and no shortcuts to success.

• This may seem ironic, given that last point, but one of my favorite articles I’ve read this year: 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job by Steve Pavlina.  A related tweet from Nassim Taleb: ‎”The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

• My single biggest turn-off: those who cannot laugh at themselves.  Not surprisingly, many of my closest friends and favorite people use self-deprecating humor constantly, and have no hesitation in telling embarrassing stories about their childhood.

• I’ve posted about this on Twitter a few times, but I will say it again: creating an emergency account is one of the smartest things I’ve done (thanks, Ramit).  Unpredictable emergencies have been some of my biggest expenses, and that “Black Swan fund” has saved me on multiple occasions.  Go to ING Direct, create a savings account, and start setting aside a chunk of each paycheck for emergencies.

• Speaking of backup plans, Ben Casnocha reminded me (a very long time ago) to back up your Delicious bookmarks.  For some reason, I’d never even considered it, but it’s a smart thing to do.  If you use it as much as I do, I highly suggest setting up a repeat reminder in your calendar to back up on a regular basis.  Just go to ‘Settings,’ click ‘Export / Backup bookmarks’ then email the file to yourself.  Done.

• RPGrad update: I’ve stopped publicly tagging a lot of the articles I’m reading for the future version of RPGrad, because I’m not planning on releasing anything anytime soon. A lot of the people who read it still run into trouble with creating free work opportunities, or are quickly lost after trying things out.  Perhaps my ideas are flawed or incomplete, or maybe most folks are in a much tougher situation than I give them credit for.  Whatever the case, I don’t want to take it too lightly and assume I know more than I do (I’m frequently guilty of this).  I also want to expand the scope to something bigger than “how to get free work!”  The more I’ve dug into the ideas behind RPGrad over the last year, the more I’ve become skeptical of the true state of this globalized economy.  I’m still confused about the recession and I’m attempting to wade through this sea of (mis)information, but I tend to believe that things are going to get significantly worse.  This is the beginning, and jumping to conclusions on anything right now seems shortsighted.  RPGrad will be a very long-term side project, and I want to make it extremely valuable.  That involves a ton of research, finding case studies, more experimentation, etc.

• A side project I’ve been working on for several months is an iPhone app that Ramit and I will be releasing this year.  I won’t say what it is just yet, but the goal was to create a very useful app on the cheap.  We’ve had two dozen testers try it out, and the average savings for the group was $168.  I want to dedicate a few posts to this project in the future, as it’s been a really fun learning process for me.  Stay tuned.

• Free idea: What if non-profits like DonorsChoose made personalized videos for each major donor?  Suddenly, the results of their donations would be in vivid color and sound, and they could truly grasp the impact they’ve made.  And they could share it with / brag about it to their friends!  It’d be more work for these organizations that are stretched thin as it is, but would ultimately lead to greater loyalty from those who contribute the most.

• One of my favorite people I had a chance to meet over the last several months is Noah Kagan.  While his career path is impressive (worked for Facebook in its early days, helped successfully launch Mint, turned down $100K salary from Yahoo because it wasn’t right for him), the thing I liked most is that he’s a very genuine and passionate person (which you can quickly see in this video).  He’s sharp and a worthwhile guy to follow, so check out his blog.

• The most amazing/humorous story I heard recently was from a guy who created a peer-to-peer network nine years ago and was sued for $250 BILLION by dozens of the world’s biggest media companies.  One person… being sued for $250,000,000,000.00.  After having his company auctioned off in court, he used his knowledge of P2P and created a new service that would benefit the same media companies that had sued him.  Six months later, 80% of them had become his customers.  Incredible.

• During my freshman year of high school, my friends and I were absolutely enamored with this gorgeous junior.  She would literally stop us in our tracks: we’d never seen a person in real life who’d been dealt a genetic royal flush.  Girls like her, we’d assumed, had a tremendously strong “bitch shield,” but she seemed to be a genuinely sweet and happy person who was well-liked by all of her peers.  A couple months ago, she committed suicide.  Time and time again, I’ve come to realize that we never see the full picture of anyone’s lives but our own — not even our family or our closest friends.  Sizing people up is awfully tempting, but a lot of us are hiding deep-seated issues that rarely see the light of day.  We are all flawed and insecure on some level that only we know about.

• Everyone seems to dread their 10-year high school reunion.  I suppose the fear comes from the idea that you’ll get to see how successful everyone is and compare them to what stage you’re at in your life.  Facebook is an everyday high school reunion, where you’re casually observing the life developments that your friends (or “friends”) are going through, except it’s on an unnecessarily detailed level that’s always filtered through our egos.  I’m not sure what the implications are, but I do think it’s strange how comfortable I am with saying to someone at a bar, whom I haven’t seen or spoken to in a year, “I saw that you got a puppy!”  It’s even stranger that this sort of comment is never met with a suspicious look.

• If you were able to make it this far, I’ll give you a special reward, and that is “How to win a Tim Ferriss contest.”  The first part of the equation: measure your damn results.  I’ve had to pick the winners a few times on posts like this one, and about 95% of the people who think they are competing automatically eliminate themselves because they write things like “I tweeted this out and posted on Facebook.”  Great, that tells me nothing.  The irony, of course, is that measuring your results is something that is emphasized over and over again on that blog, yet almost none of the people who leave comments do it.  It’s a lot easier to win these contests than you’d think.  The competition, although seemingly abundant, is minimal.  So use bit.ly to your advantage, and share your results.  The second part of the equation: do something different.  Literally everyone does the Facebook and Twitter routine, and that’s fine if you get some results.  But when people write that they were able to get the contest attention on a radio station, or they printed out 100 flyers, or started a separate related contest with their friends, we pay attention.  That may be less effective, but it at least shows that you put more than 3 seconds of effort into it.

And now, some videos!

• “The Unsettling Truth about Life” by Trey Parker and Matt Stone:

• This video is a highlight reel I made for Bill Dawes, the comedian who was with us on the I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell tour.  It’s pretty funny, check it out:

• I put this together when AwayFind released its gadget on the Google Apps Marketplace.  The 3-second time lapse at 0:07-0:10 took more than an hour to make.

• One of my biggest regrets over the last few months was not seeing John Butler Trio (my favorite band in college) live at Red Rocks.  Literally everyone I’ve spoken to who went — young and old — said it was, by far and away, the best live performance they’ve ever seen.  I’m still bitter at my decision to stay in that night, in favor of seeing another concert the following week.  Foolish, foolish, foolish.  Here’s their closing song from that night:

Whew!  That’s all for now.  Thanks again to all who continue reading, I truly enjoy the interactions I continue to have with you guys.  More exciting posts to come in the next few months!

Well, relying solely on Google will often bring you mediocre results and a lot of frustration.  For instance, if you search for “the best CRM tool,” the very first result will be this article.  It’s a top 10 list (punctuated by Google Ads, of course) with the phrase “Highly recommended” next to 8 of the 10 suggested tools.  You’re a bit wary of their recommendations because of how sloppy the site looks, so you move on to the second result: a top 5 list.  They don’t endorse any of the sites from the first article… Strange.  On to the third result from Google: “an insider’s guide” to finding the best deals on CRM software… that requires you to register before downloading it.  Ugh.

Thankfully, there’s a faster and easier way to find solid resources.  Just use delicious.com.  Here’s how:

Put http://delicious.com/popular/crm into the address bar.  The /popular/crm extension will show you the sites that have been most frequently tagged as ‘crm’:

Popular CRM bookmarks (Click to enlarge)

Delicious.com/popular takes a lot of the guesswork out of search by showing the number of people who have tagged those sites (see the numbers on the right side of the image).  You don’t have to determine if something is legit, because that’s already been verified by X number of users.  For this particular search, it’s fairly safe to assume that any site that’s been tagged by more than 2,000 people will be a good choice.

And just like that, you’ve found exactly what you were looking for: the best the web has to offer for CRM tools.

Now let’s say you want to get really specific and search for more than one keyword.  Easy: just use the /tag/ extension instead of /popular/, and add on keywords like so: “keyword1+keyword2+keyword3.”  I actually had to do this last night, so I’ll show you a personal example.

I was looking for an old Springwise article about a sports website that allows people to upload videos of themselves and receive personalized instruction from professional coaches.  Cool concept, but I couldn’t remember the name of the site or the particular sport they catered to, so I Googled “site:springwise.com sports video coaching.”  Nothing.  Then I tried Springwise’s internal search engine (powered by Google), just to see if something different might come up.  Still nothing.

Then I tried delicious.com/tag/springwise+sports (an even less descriptive keyword search than what I used for Google), and found the article almost instantly:

Delicious is great for finding useful resources because it can’t really produce fake or hacked results.  Many people have figured out little tricks that take advantage of Google’s ranking methods, which can lead to a bunch of scammy and irrelevant results.  Delicious results, however, are dictated by a collective pool of individuals, each of whom has decided that those particular sites were worthy of being bookmarked for future reference.  So you can be fairly certain that any site you find that’s been saved hundreds or thousands of times on Delicious will be relevant and valuable to you.

Of course, there’s an obvious bias that comes with Delicious: the users are particularly web-savvy, and don’t represent the general population, the scientific community, etc., etc.  But it’s a very minor flaw, and it’s one to be expected.

There are many other fine resources you can use for pinpointing and measuring the web’s best content (StumbleUpon, Alexa, Wikipedia, etc.), but I find Delicious to be the most efficient and consistently relevant.  So try using it to supplement your Google searches.  Eventually, you might find yourself (like me) using the service every day.

As Phil relives the same 24 hours over and over, he makes minor tweaks in every interaction so that he can squeeze as much out of people as possible.  Eventually, his focus turns to Rita, whom he attempts to seduce.  Despite Phil’s ability to quickly lure other women into bed with him (particularly Nancy), it becomes obvious that Rita will not fall for Phil’s superficial efforts.  She cannot be deceived, no matter how much Phil learns about her and simulates rapport.  Even when he gets her in his bed, she stops him because she feels like he’s trying to cash in too quickly.  He hasn’t earned anything yet.

Phil becomes depressed after his countless failures with Rita.  He tries to kill himself numerous times, only to continually regain consciousness the next morning.  Eventually, Phil accepts that there’s no way out of his predicament, and he may as well make the most of it.

So he decides to spend his time improving himself and helping others.  He reads books.  He develops interesting skills, like ice sculpting and jazz piano.  He befriends everyone in town — not to take advantage of them the next day, but just for the sake of it.  He learns to be genuinely empathetic and compassionate, and focuses exclusively on improving the lives of those around him.

This, of course, ultimately leads to him winning Rita over.  Not from actively trying to seduce her, but by having tons of other people willingly vouch for him and confirm that he’s the real deal.  The seduction is seemingly effortless, even though it took years for Phil to finally put all the pieces together.

So… where am I going with this?

When you start a business, you get to decide who your customers will be.  You have two options.

The first option is people like Nancy, who will fall for all the right words and tricks.  They’re very easy kills.  If you know which buttons to push, you can reel them in almost every time.  Optimize this here, tweak the wording there, adjust the coloring, and voila – sale!  Nancy is easy, profitable, but frankly, she’s boring as hell.  You did nothing meaningful to earn her, other than cracking a code through trial and error.  It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

The second option is for you to focus on people like Rita.  They are not easily deceived.  Even if you get them up to Step 9 of 10, they will stop suddenly and say, “Wait a minute… you’re full of shit!” and storm off.   Rita is exhausting to win over.  But Rita is sustainable.  She pushes you to be better, and to hold yourself to a higher standard.  Paradoxically, winning Rita over cannot be accomplished if it’s the end goal; it can only be a byproduct in your pursuit of something that’s sincerely meaningful to you.

——

I’ve learned a fair amount about how easy it is to persuade most people into buying something.  At first, having that knowledge is pretty cool.  But after using it a few times, it becomes fairly monotonous.  Do this, do that, and Nancy will predictably hop in the sack.  Sigh.  There’s no meaning, and eventually, no real challenge.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of trying to win over the Ritas of the world.  It’s a long term play, and you cannot win with tricks and deception.  It has to be difficult.  It has to be real.  You have to continually work on becoming the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.  And other people have to vouch for you, without solicitation.

It just seems like that’s how things should be done.

No automated “Welcome to Wistia!” emails for me to instantly delete.  Just a quick message from a real person.  And the kind gesture of giving out his cell phone number in case I have any problems seals the deal.  I’m not going to call that number (why would I?), but the fact that he gave it to me establishes a greater sense of trust in the service itself.  And yes, I know he copies and pastes that to everyone who signs up.  I don’t care.  It still works because it’s unique.

Of course, this is a very mild example of injecting the human element into customer service.  Video hosting is not exactly something where people need constant reassurance that support is readily available.  But there are great opportunities for other industries where this concept, taken to a higher level, would be much more effective.

For instance, let’s say you’re uninsured and need open heart surgery.  You can’t afford the procedure in the U.S., so you’re thinking about getting treatment overseas.  This is extremely scary for you and feels incredibly risky, even after you do extensive research on the best doctors and hospitals in various countries.  But then one of your potential overseas doctors emails you, proposing a video conference call (instead of a phone call) to discuss the procedure and go over any questions you might have.  You decide to do the video call, and get to talk with your doctor face-to-face.  You hear his voice, see his smile, and you grow to trust him.  He’s no longer a set of credentials on a website — he’s a real person who’s going to take good care of you.  Done deal.

Any customer that feels a large degree of uncertainty wants to be convinced that, if things go wrong, they’ll be in good hands.  They want to know that real people care about them, not just some hired worker who’s being paid $7/hour to read a script.  So erase their doubts and show them your face.

If you want to travel for an extended period but can’t afford it, consider drafting up a proposal for the tourism company in the city you want to visit.  Say that you want to do the same things that Ben Southall did for Queensland, “free of charge,” if they’re willing to fly you over.  Tourism companies need good public relations people, so prove to them that you can fill that role.

“In fact, I went ahead and got started on this.  As you can see, I already have a sizable audience that’s interested in reading about my travels…”

If your proposal is truly outstanding, they might even be willing to cover the majority of your expenses.

Free work doesn’t have to mean that every single thing you do for someone is coming out of your wallet.  It just means they’re not paying your salary… yet.

A lot of people say to me… ‘What if I don’t want to spend any money to get started?  Is there any way I can get started and not spend money?’  And the answer to that is yes.  I have some techniques in this book that can show you how to advertise, drive traffic and customers to your website so you can make money without spending a single penny.

And one of those things is Twitter.  We hear about Twitter all the time, it’s everywhere you go, you see something about Twitter, right?  You can turn your Twitter account into an automatic machine that’s just driving traffic and customers to your website all day long.  Because there are millions of people on Twitter, right?  So it’s real easy to reach those people if you know the techniques.  And that’s exactly what I teach in this book.  Same thing with Facebook, Myspace, and everything else.

Anthony Morrison is lying.  Whatever positive takeaways his book might contain are negated by the statement in bold.  Anyone who has spent a decent chunk of time on Twitter can assure you that he is wrong.

Let’s set aside the ridiculous notion that it’s “easy” to reach millions of people on Twitter, and just focus on the assertion that you can make money through the site.  I know a few people who have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter.  I know one person who has almost a million followers.  None of them have ever claimed that Twitter is a good way to make money.  Why?  Because people do not use Twitter to help decide on what purchases to make.  They are not in a buyer’s state of mind, unlike when they’re using Google to find a solution to their problem and are much more likely to make a purchase.  Even if you’re posting affiliate links, the click-thru rate is going to be 10% at the very high end.  Conversion to sales?  Way lower.  Do the math, and you’ll find that it’s a waste of your time.

Not surprisingly, Anthony has just a little over a thousand followers… With that kind of following, it’s no wonder he’s rolling in profitable traffic!  Let’s follow his lead!  But first, let’s see if we can read some of his meaningless tweets without having a cerebral hemorrhage.

Look, I know there are always going to be con artists in every industry.  It’s a fact of life.  I try not to get mad about this stuff, but I can’t help it.  I hate seeing these jerks duping people into handing over three easy payments of $19.95 based on promises that I empirically know to be false.  Anthony is not the only guilty party; this has become a golden age for anyone with cursory knowledge of the internet to take advantage of the uninformed.

What’s most aggravating is that the internet truly has the potential to be something wonderful for so many individuals and companies.  With a lot of hard work, it can be a potent tool for earning trust, permission, love, and respect from all over the world…

But why nurture that potential when you can be making some fast and easy $$$?!!!

I’ve told several smaller companies that Twitter is little more than a fun distraction.  I’ve told them to shut down their Facebook accounts.  To focus on the few things that will help them accomplish their goals, and to ignore all the hype.  For many of them, social networks just don’t make much sense for their business.  But the temptation is too great, so they usually do all this stuff anyway.

If you really want to make $$$ on Twitter, follow this guy’s formula.  I guarantee you’ll get instant results.

According to my latest post, this restaurant is doing it right.  They should even be in the black!

Far from it.  They’re going out of business.

When they opened, I distinctly remember saying that it was a terrible idea, and there was no way they’d succeed.  There’s just no demand for hot dogs, unless you’re in a stadium or stumbling out of a bar.

Allow me to contradict myself: Being the only business in a category can certainly yield great results, but it is not a clear-cut recipe for success.  Nor does it mean that you can expect profits.

My last post was admittedly simplistic, and I was wrong.  The conclusion I came to clashes with countless examples of successful restaurants that don’t play by my rules.  Ryan Holiday rightfully called my wording and logic into question:

Charlie – Be serious. This fallacy has a number of different names, but it’s mostly just empty writing. You found a fun example. It something to think about. What it isn’t is a base of evidence use for generalization.

Frankly, 97 million dollars is a paltry number when you compare it to essentially every other restaurant in existence since no one else abides by this “rule.” Besides, what’s really going on here is a compromise between two important goals companies have – which are first to get customers through the door and second, to convert as much as possible once they are there. Simple, clear category differentiation is critical and that’s what only selling a single product can do. Adding additional items to the menu generates units-per-transaction which is an incredibly important metric as well. Why do restaurants serve desserts they don’t make themselves? The same reason the have a bar: the margins are better.

The fact of the matter is that these things are rarely as simple or clever or concise as the first impulse implies. In any case, it’s certainly “not more profitable to be the only one that does what you do” as many multi-billion dollars brands can attest. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

Quite a few of my peers and readers are pretty smart.  If I’m being a naive jackass, speak up in the comments.  That’s what they’re there for.

Or you can softly chuckle and let my foolishness go unchecked.

Twelve years ago we started off as a small fast-food restaurant, in a dumpy looking building.  Today we are a thriving small business and one of the most popular places for Aggies to eat, in our same dumpy looking building.   Our tables and booths don’t exactly match, our landscaping looks terrible and our building is not exactly sturdy, but our chicken fingers are why people come.

Their menu?

• Chicken Finger plate
• Chicken Finger sandwich
• Chicken Finger club sandwich
• Grilled chicken sandwich
• French fries
• Potato salad
• Texas toast

And if you think specialization is only a practice reserved for smaller restaurants, Jen points out Raising Cane’s.  From their Wikipedia page:

The restaurant offers fried chicken fingers as its only main course. Raising Cane’s total revenue in 2007 was $97.3 million.

Seems like it’s a lot more profitable* to be known as the only one that does what you do, rather than simply trying to be the best.

(Or it could just be the chicken fingers.)

*Note: “A lot more profitable” is wrong.  “Can be just as profitable” is a bit less simplistic.

• Hamburgers
• Hot dogs
• Philly cheesesteaks
• Grilled chicken
• Chicken strips
• Popcorn chicken
• Potato salad
• Macaroni salad
• Coleslaw
• Garden salad
• Mac and cheese wedges
• Jalapeno poppers
• Cheese stix
• Fried mushrooms
• Fried zucchini
• Funnel cake
• Apple pie

But of course!  They’re called Wingman, so why wouldn’t they be serving fried zucchini?

“Oh they’ll come for the wings, but they’ll stay for the apple pie!”

This is obviously stupid just from a financial perspective, as they’re wasting money on ingredients they use for 10% of the orders.  And it slows down their order times drastically because new customers are suddenly overwhelmed with an abundance of choice that they didn’t expect (probably not a huge problem, as the place isn’t very popular).  But what aggravates me most is that THEY’RE CALLED WINGMAN, yet they serve uninteresting foods that have never been associated with wings.

“But Charlie, maybe they get orders for outdoor corporate events!  It’s always good to have potato salad at the company picnic, LOL!”

Of course they get bulk orders from time-to-time — all restaurants do — but that doesn’t mean they should accommodate every buyer’s random needs.  Just because some of your customers love apple pie, it doesn’t mean it should be on the menu.

Why are they even serving salads?  To accommodate vegetarians?  SCREW VEGETARIANS!  If you don’t eat meat, why the hell are you in a restaurant called Wingman?  Put up a big sign that says, “Want salad?  Go back to Whole Foods, hippie.”  Then pelt them with frozen chicken wings as they run out.

Nothing pisses me off more than a good product or service that gets completely diluted because the owners wanted to please everyone.

So polarize the crowd.  Instead of matching your competitors’ offerings, veer in a different direction that everyone else is too afraid of.  Stop adding, and start taking things away.  It’s far more interesting when choices are reduced, and people are excluded.

Source: GoComics.com

2009 was a whirlwind year for me.  The number of new experiences, places visited, and lessons learned makes my head hurt when I try to recount all of them. Nevertheless, I’m going to do my best to recall most of the good stuff (and a little of the bad), talk about a few personal milestones from last year, and hopefully cobble together some newfound wisdom I gained along the way.

• Started my first “official” company. Quickly discovered that consulting is not really my wheel house.   As much as I like teaching and offering advice, I prefer DOING — having a greater degree of control and seeing the results from my efforts.  Also found that payment for consulting work is way too sporadic for my liking, unless you’re on retainer.

• My favorite work routine. I did, however, find that I LOVE the work schedule that comes with being on tour.  Although it was exhausting and very demanding, I really enjoyed having to do the same process over and over but in different locations.  It was sort of like playing a sport: same exact routine everyday with the same team, but always a fresh and exciting experience.

• Tons of new experiences. The number of things that I got to experience last year is almost overwhelming when I think about it.  Traveling in a tour bus across the country.  Helping out with the marketing for three best-selling books.  Becoming proficient in Final Cut Pro and learning high-end cameras. Writing my first e-book… Eh, I guess it’s not very overwhelming when I write it out like that.  [To-do for 2010: Work on sounding more impressive].

• Video editing. All the hours I spent editing video… fairly staggering, relative to past experiences.  Hands down, the most footage I’ve edited in one year.  But I still dig it, and am excited to learn the rest of the creative suite.

• Recession-Proof Graduate. The thing I’m most proud of from 2009.  When you combine Ramit’s and my Slideshare accounts, plus the number of people who downloaded the e-book from Ramit’s email list, it quickly adds up to more than 50,000 people having read RPGrad.  That is no small amount, and it still blows my mind.  Even though a lot of people enjoyed it, there were still a few pitfalls.  It kinda sucks being known as the guy who does free work, for instance.  I’ve had some people come to me, asking if I’d be willing to do MONTHS of work at no cost to them.  Sorry guys, it doesn’t work that way — I have to approach you first.

• Learned A LOT about pricing. I can’t see myself ever working hourly rates again (unless it’s for a trial period, or I take on a part-time job for fun).  First off, I HATE keeping track of my time for someone else’s benefit, and I usually forget to do it.  Second, “hours worked” is not necessarily linked to quality or results.  Third (and most important), it doesn’t scale.  The ideal way to price your services is to have a flat rate, plus a scaling rate based on your results.  When you want a potential customer to buy your services, do not offer them just one rate, whether it be hourly or fixed.  Instead, offer them tiered-pricing: basic (low cost), middle, and premium (high cost).  This way, they aren’t deciding between “yes” or “no”; they’re deciding on which offer will be best for them.  They’re happy to have more choice, and you’re more likely to gain a new customer.  Pricing is both a measure of value and a barrier.  Use it to filter out the types of customers you want, and to turn away the ones you don’t.

• Don’t fall in love with imaginary numbers. When you’re dealing with people who don’t have an extensive track record (see: first-time entrepreneurs), they offer percentages pretty frequently.  So it’s easy to think, “Oh dear god… if this thing does well, I’ll be making bank!”  Don’t be fooled.  There’s always a very decent chance it will never go big (or even fail completely), all while you’re being lulled along for countless hours of work by money that isn’t there.  I’ve had “equity” and certain percentages dangled in front of me a number of times now, and taken up several of them.  Some turned out okay, many didn’t pay off at all.  When you take on a project with an offer like this, just be sure you’ll gain something significant from it — skills, marketable experience, anything.  Otherwise, you’ll walk away empty-handed.

• Measuring a person’s toxicity. One of my favorite things I read was on how to decide which of your friends, co-workers, clients, significant others, and even family members are toxic.  When you interact with that person, do they drain your energy, or do they rejuvenate it?  When you THINK of spending time with them, do you start feeling stressed and tired, or do you get excited?  Cut down your time with the people who drain you, and work on becoming a person who rejuvenates others.

• The source > The numbers. Ad impressions mean nothing if the viewers aren’t conditioned and primed to buy.  An influx of traffic is worthless if it comes from a site with ADD readers.  What’s important is the quality of the source.  A thousand impressions on a site where readers have been conditioned to click and buy are far more valuable than a million impressions on a site where readers ignore the ads, even if the latter is much cheaper.  Having a thousand readers visit after an endorsement from Seth Godin is far more valuable than ten thousand visitors coming from Lifehacker.  Different audiences, different expectations.

• I hate all social media experts. Even if you legitimately know what you’re talking about, I still hate you for the title you’ve given yourself.  You have the easiest job in the world, you’re overpaid, you have almost no experience, you get excited over things that are excruciatingly boring and inconsequential, and perhaps your greatest sin of all, you’re okay with feeding your clients garbage and making them think they need you. Shame on you if you’re extracting money from a small mom-and-pop company because you think they should have a “presence” on Twitter.  Get outside of your own heads and start thinking about how you can help clients accomplish their goals, you morons.

• Anyone can mitigate their financial risks. I don’t think it’s smart to have one stream of income.  Even if you’re financially successful and have been with the same company for 25 years, all of it can be instantly taken away from you.  Set up an emergency account and start putting away a small amount of money each week.  Save up for 3-6 months of basic living expenses.  Then think about how you can earn extra income on the side (with your skills, setting up a side business, selling things on ebay, etc.) and start doing it!  You may scoff at this generic advice, but I’ll be damned if it’s not hugely important.  I’ve witnessed friends’ parents lose nearly everything at the brink of retirement, simply because they put all their eggs in one basket.

• Plan ahead for fixed costs. In mid-2009, I was running low on funds and had hit a dry spell for work (i.e. no money coming in).  Then I received all of the following on the exact same day: a car insurance bill that I’d somehow forgotten was coming, an overdraft fee, attorney’s fees for paperwork on setting up an LLC, and a credit card bill.  The one that infuriated me was the car insurance, because I could have easily planned for it if I hadn’t been an idiot.  After that incident, I opened a sub-account and set up automated weekly savings for all the bills I knew were coming.  Problem solved.  So look at your big expenses from 2009.  Which ones can you expect again this year?  Divide by 52, then automatically set aside that amount each week.

• The internet is an echo chamber. I’ve learned this firsthand twice, after Kottke randomly quoted one of my posts, and Seth wrote about RPGrad.  All of the sudden, EVERYONE was parroting versions of what they wrote.  It was extremely humbling, but also somewhat disturbing to see how many people just copy the influencers (and I’m referring to Kottke and Seth, not myself).

• There is no “right” way. In spite of my incessant endorsements for doing free work, that’s just a tactic that’s worked well for me.  And while I think it’s very useful for anyone who’s just starting out, I’m biased: I defend it because it was the path I chose.  There were a lot of trade-offs that came with it, and sometimes it just flat out sucked.  But that kind of honesty doesn’t get anyone excited over an e-book, does it?  The truth is, I worked harder than most people to reach this point.  I made a ton of mistakes along the way, and could have easily taken several different paths that would have been immediately more lucrative but less fulfilling.  There is no right or wrong when it comes to your career; there is only what’s right for you.

• How to succeed as an entrepreneur. I’ve effectively received a 1-year crash course in entrepreneurship, something my schooling didn’t really offer. I’ve done lots of research, had a decent amount of hands-on experience, and raised my standards with a few cool people who were willing to give me more control than I probably should have been allowed.  I’ve learned that becoming a successful entrepreneur is really hard, and I have immense respect for anyone who can pull it off.  But I’ve witnessed and studied the processes that successful entrepreneurs go through so many times that it finally clicked last year, and I know I’m capable of doing it on my own.  And that, I believe, will ultimately give me the freedom that I’ve been pursuing.