The Social Currency
How many times have you said, someone once said, but I can’t remember who. Then it becomes, as I’ve always said….once you claim it to be yours, the thing that someone once said, became research. The truth is, we should always give credit to whomever said the thing you decided to rip and make your own, integrity then becomes the word damaged if you don’t.
If you plan on building a brand, a business, or a reputation, you will need the sacred social currency, trust. Without trust, you’ll find it almost impossible to acquire true fans, which means the tribe won’t follow you. So always name the person, give the credit to its rightful owner, if it’s you, then you can say, as I’ve always said, and I’ll have to say, as someone once said if I don’t know who you are. Become known, share your wisdom, and protect yourself from being the someone who once said.
The social currency is trust, but you’ll only get it through transparency and giving credit to those who deserve it, the fastest way to lose it, keep taking credit for something you didn’t say or do.
My Friend Needs Your Help – Job or Self-Employment?
I have an online friend in this battle, he is well-known, has built a large online following, written 6 books, and a host of other things, after all of this, he is looking for a full-time job. He admits that he hasn’t been able to make it on his own (but still wants to), so he is looking for a job, but a specific kind of job. Which raises the question, should you seek a job (full-time) or step out the way of self-employment?
The question raises many other questions of whether you’re in a place to go self-employed or to continue working a job, but only you can answer them, it’s all a risk at some level. I have been on my own the last 7 years, it was exciting at first, but it got gradually harder, and I found myself wishing for a full-time job so I didn’t have to go through the pain. The fact is, some of us are not able to be self-employed, for a lot of reason’s, but you can learn to, and find ways to survive through the down times. Surviving is not why we start a business, or make the decision to be self-employed, we hope for greater than what we had in the job, its human nature.
I’m writing this here because I want to help him, I admire this person’s transparency, his willingness to put himself out there, to be humble enough to ask for help in a very public way, his name is Jesse Stay, I’ll let him appeal to you:
Yes, I’m looking for a full-time job. Know anyone that’s hiring?
The truth is, it’s embarrassing to say that. As someone who has written 6 books on social media and continually gets approached for more; As someone who has almost 80,000 subscribers on Facebook, 65,000 followers on Google+, and 40,000 on Twitter, along with Facebook Pages in the hundreds of thousands; As someone who has helped pioneer social media and audience/reach for organizations like the LDS Church, Deseret Digital Media (a top 25 news organization in the USA) and even worked with Facebook, Inc. herself; As someone who has built Twitter tools with users in the hundreds of thousands; As someone who was described by Mashable as one of the top entrepreneurs, and top developers to follow on Twitter, I just couldn’t make going on my own work.
Raising a family of 8 on your own, with no full-time employment is HARD! While I’m constantly getting new clients (and still seeking more, unless I get a job), it just doesn’t seem enough to make what I need to support my family. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Maybe I just have more expensive needs with my large family.
I’m often told and described by others who introduce me as “one of the best social media experts in the world.” Those are not my words. It’s hard for me to believe them when I can’t bring in enough clients on my own to justify that title. Those that work with me love what I do for them, but I’m not doing something right, because I still don’t have enough clients paying regularly to keep me afloat. I think I’m just not cut out enough to do this thing on my own – I either need someone who’s picking up the slack in the areas I’m missing (aka someone to tell me what to do while handling the sales/budget/finance – know anyone good?), or I just need to work for someone else.
It’s tough for me to share this – I have to swallow my pride. I don’t enjoy admitting defeat, and maybe I haven’t fully, but some how I’ve got to pay the bills, and I’m ready to make a change in direction to do so.
If you know anyone hiring Director-level or above in digital or social media strategy (can even have a technical-leaning, as I started out as a software developer), or even emerging technologies and finding disruptions within a company, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency included, please send them my way. I’m really looking for introductions more than job postings. I’ve found a million job postings and without a close friend that knows my skill-set introducing me to the hiring manager and pushing them to hire me it really doesn’t do much good in such a competitive market. Also, while I’d love to stay in Utah, I’m really open to working anywhere (especially internationally!) if it gets me employed. Send them my way!
Oh, and please feel free to check out my LinkedIn profile to see my clients, work performed, skills, endorsements, and recommendations: http://linkedin.com/in/facebook
If you can help him, I recommend you reach out to Jesse, you’ll find him easy to contact, and he is always willing to help.
Do You Like To Learn Or Teach?
Have you noticed how many courses, webinars, and online workshops there are, that claim to teach you the secret to XYZ? I’ve often wondered about those who teach these programs, did they start out as teacher’s, or were they student’s first. There is a saying, the teacher appears when the student is ready. I have been student most of my life, why…because I like to learn. I also love to teach, but it’s not a natural gift for me, I have to work hard at it! Learning is harder for me because I’m so abstract, visionary, and I tend to fly at 50,000 feet, and most of the time, people don’t get me. That may be a communication issue.
I’m in my mid to late 50’s now, so I’ve been doing the details and leading teams to do details for many years. I’m a teacher, and a learner, but I had to learn long before I could teach. Plus, I had to have some life experience before I could teach intelligently. So, what are you, or where are you in this journey of becoming a teacher? Are you trying to be a teacher too soon, maybe you haven’t learned enough yet, haven’t experienced enough, or does it matter?
I guess I’m just curious about where all these Expert’s and Guru’s come from, and where did they learn to do what they teach. Are they accredited, who are they, what do we know about them, ya my heads exploding with all the questions. The old adage, the old rule applies here as it does in any transaction, buyer beware, you may be getting sold down the river by these expert’s and gurus.
But if you ask yourself, what do I like to do, learn or teach, I think you’ll find one can’t go without the other. Be careful what you call yourself when you the student is ready to become a teacher, your experience will become obvious.
Remember, Perception Is Everything
So here it is, its Wednesday March 12th, 2014, a beautiful sunny day here on the west coast of Canada. I fetched my snail mail this afternoon, I opened an envelope addressed to me. No, it wasn’t bills or bad news, it was…well, I wasn’t sure what to think. Most of the world knows who Mayor Rob Ford is, if you don’t know who he is, he is the Mayor of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has admitted to smoking crack cocaine, and is a binge drinker, along with host of other issues. There’s a much deeper story, but I don’t have the time, the patience, or the space to write it.
So, in the mail today I got a direct mail piece, they used Send Out Cards (www.sendoutcards.com), so, a card, I have never done business with them before, or know anyone who works for them, so they’re soliciting via the shotgun approach. This card was from a financial firm in British Columbia, getting the card was fine, but what was on the cover….well…. rather than me say it, I’ll show you:
Now I understand what they’re trying to do, but I felt like they were going for the cheap humor, potty jokes. The question, “What do employee benefit renewals and elections have in common?”gets lost in seeing Mayor Rob Ford’s picture to me. Call it shock marketing, hoping the negative will be a positive conversion experience. The sell inside the card, I removed the company name & phone number. Here’s the inside message:
Would you consider this a good direct mail piece, would you use the picture of Mayor Rob Ford as your cover, is this a good marketing idea or bad? Would you do business with this company? What is your gut reaction, impressions? Remember, perception is everything.
The Best Way To Predict The Future
The Best Way To Predict The Future, the words from a famous leader are, “The best way to predict the future is to create it”! The man who said these words was, Abraham Lincoln. Which proves, we….man / women, have been thinking about this for a long, long time.
I was chatting with a friend this morning, about the future, married kids, and our ages, it was fun but bothersome at the same time. I was consumed by the feeling that, I’m running out of time. I may spend hours on end looking into the future, where business is going, and how it will change, but I don’t worry about what MY future looks like, to a small degree.
Creating your future sounds simple enough, but it rely’s on a great many things not in our personal control. You could plan your life, write it all down on paper, then try to live it exactly as you laid it out, but the odds are, you probably got off course along the way, like a boat on water, in a massive storm. You see, I think Abraham Lincoln was talking about something else, he was seeing a bigger picture, as if standing on top of a mountain, and looking out at what could be, watching at what was happening, and how it would have to change, but there was only really one way it would come to fruition.
The only way, the best way to predict the future, is to create it, not by just saying the words, giving lip service, it doesn’t happen unless you take part. That’s the real message from the President, get involved, build, be a member of society, and a creator of the future. Help build a community, be a part of that community, in that you would be living in a future you helped create, where ever you happen to be in this world. The future is not built by one man or women on this earth, it’s built with the help of many. So inspire your tribe to create your preferred future, and bring many along on the journey, you have the power to create the future. The old saying goes, “many hands make light work”, go and make something happen, make the world a better place.
