Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Saturation. I don't have it yet but I see it coming over the horizon.  So far, most of my courses have been on business and marketing; I guess that's where I feel the weakest.  It's also been great to meet people on the show floor.  Putting faces to names I've only spoken to on the phone.  It's funny: after I've spoken with someone a dozen or two times, done business with them, engaged in a little chitchat, and then meet them face to face, we're already sort of friends and it's a real treat to meet them.  Lisa Fahay's a great example of several today.  My pleasure, Lisa.

This morning's seminar was another tough call.  I need you to understand: every time slot of 90 minutes has 15 to 20 different classes going on at the same time, in different rooms, so perhaps you can see the difficulty in winnowing it down to just one.  This session,  "10 More Marketing Tactics Worth Stealing' or 'Systems and Methods for Scaling Your Business'?  Well, not too tough.  'Systems' had such a dry title that '10 More' won fairly quickly.  It was a panel of 4 contractors of various stripes who, for whatever reason, now do Home Performance Contracting.  It was led and moderated by a stub of a guy that was a delight to listen to, Ed Thomas.  The 4 contractors were informative and had some solid nuggets but I could have listened to Ed for the whole hour and a half.  What a great presenter.  Vivacious, funny, and active with a solid, natural feel of his subject and an effortless delivery.  Hope you read this, Ed.  Great class.

The second morning session was a *real* difficult choice.  "House Characterization", "Online Marketing Strategies for Home Performance Contractors", "Standards, Specifications, and Certification: Why They Are Your Business", and more.  Sort of randomly, I chose "Online Marketing" with Aaron Goldfeder of EnergySavvy and Ben Gutkin of Warm Thoughts.  Looks like I'm a glutton for marketing info, eh?  I remember thinking part way through the session that perhaps this one was bit of a bust but now, looking back over my notes, I took a LOT of notes.  They must have been more informative than I thought at the time.  Lots of nuggets: customer reviews are everything.  I won't get them unless I ask.  A strong website has a lot of *inbound* links. Story, Snacks, Sneezes: make your company sound like a good story, offer visual snacks, and ask everyone I know to mention my Story.  The new Google Maps search makes strong websites a larger size on the map. I only have 4 seconds when someone lands on my website to answer 3 questions: Do I have what they want? Am I local? Am I somebody they want to do business with?  Otherwise, click, they're gone.

After more show floor shmoozing and a hurried bite, it's off to the first afternoon session.

I'll tell you how it went later.