At the Edge of Explosion!

Stop Whining! Your Service Sucks! (an edgy conversation)

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:57:09 +0000

Let’s be very clear about something.

Horrible customer service is the fastest way to drive your dreams into bankruptcy.

No amount of whining, whimpering, and halfhearted excuse-making can remedy selfish behavior.

Sure — the late 1990′s brought us the age of “more selling, less service”. And that certainly sounds logical, right?

After all we are emerging from the worst buying environment in more than eight decades. It would seem that you need to “get out there” more than ever.

It’s that “Stop being an order taker and start being a whale hunter…”type of sales preaching.

Admit it. You’ve had a sales manager get “up in your business” telling you that you need more cold calls and more ways to “fill the funnel”. Right?

And… your manager if probably right.

Being proactive has never been more in style.

But chasing new customers is the slowest way to grow your business.

It takes massive amounts of time and more times than not doesn’t even work. You chase. They stay out of reach.

Somehow the easiest revenue strategy — investing in the relationships you already have — seems to be the solution that we avoid at all costs.

Think about the last time that you actually reached out to an old customer. You needed something right — more money, a referral, your invoice paid a little faster?

Anything else is just flat out annoying. It’s a waste of your time. After all you’ve closed the deal already. You’re not a babysitter, cheerleader, or someone who let’s people take advantage of them. Right?

Well guess what? That plan stinks.

You need to stop whining about not winning and start serving.

When was the last time that you provided an outrageous customer experience?

Not answered a question or returned a phone call within 24 hours. That’s all considered the bare minimum.

When did you make your customer feel so special and cared for that they became ravenous fans?

Instead we tell ourselves that chasing the next big deal is the right direction.

Maybe it’s because we’re too embarrassed to admit that we just don’t care enough to be the high performer that we pretend to be.

Maybe fixing our service was the answer all along.

The Ultimate Guide to Handling Stupid People

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:29:08 +0000

The cosmos is full of stupid people.

Sometimes it feels like you get more than your fair share of interaction with all the wrong ones. It can drive you mad.

And if you don’t have a plan, stupid people will derail every dream and ambition that you have. They are the black holes of everything that is positive and hopeful for your future. The soul-sucking vacuums of cosmic destiny.

You may be thinking:

Who Are These Stupid People?

Simple. They are the idiots and morons who emotionally combat you at every turn.

They are not your mentors, your coaches, or concerned friends and advocates.

No. These people are different than that.

When you decide to invest in your own mental and physical betterment, they make it their mission to “bring you back to reality”. They are the masters of the “that’ll never work” and “we’ll see how long that lasts”. (Here’s more to that discussion.)

They trumpet rules and excellence and achievement, but only in the areas that they think they have an advantage. It’s really them needing to feel better than you. And not because they feel the need to pursue excellence, but because them besting you on some esoteric scale somehow assuages their feeling of guilty ineptness.

Here’s what you need to know:

Stupid people have given up on anything but mediocrity a long time ago.

The problem is they can’t admit it. After all, who walks around with a “I Love Mediocrity” t-shirt? That’s not even close to being in style. So instead of trying to better themselves and change the world, stupid people make it their mission to destroy, ridicule and otherwise marginalize anything (and anyone) who reminds them that they are not the person they pretend to be.

So, How Can You Best Handle Stupid People?

There’s no one simple formula. Like stepping on a poisonous spider, sometimes you just grab any old shoe that’s lying around and whack at it.

Shoes. Books. A log from the fireplace. Whatever it takes to crush the poison of their bite.

So here are 6 (not so easy sometimes) steps to handling stupid people.

You can use one of these or all of these. You choose.

1. Qualify their opinions

Just add “in my opinion” to anything that stupid people ever say.

Ever notice that those that doubt the most seem to have the loudest voices?

You can disarm their negativity by discounting everything they say with the simple mental qualifier “in my opinion”.

Instead of hearing a stupid person tell you “that’ll never work” you mentally qualify it as “in my opinion, that will never work”. And that frankly doesn’t hurt that bad. Does it?

The reality is that their opinion doesn’t really matter anyway. By you qualifying what they say, you reaffirm that to yourself.

2. Lower your standards

Expect less. it’s amazing how tolerant you can be when you don’t even anticipate the smallest of kindnesses.

We are programmed to give others the benefit of the doubt. We tend to think that at the end of the day, others will do the right thing by us. That eventually the truth will win out over all that is evil.

Stop thinking that (about stupid people). You’re setting yourself up for a swift shoe in the pants.

Expect incessant ridicule, distorted emotional misrepresentation, and hyperbolic injustice.

It’s powerful for you when you come mentally prepared.

3. Be purposefully kind

Go out of your way to be grateful for the critics that demand perfection from you.

They are not out to be understanding. Or fair. They demand that you are purposeful in every word and action.

If you demand excellence of yourself, they demand a standard far higher. It’s accountability on steroids.

And in a weird twisted sort of “I love pain” way, you should be grateful. You get the Olympic coach of “ball-bustery” and don’t have to pay a penny. How cool is that?

So act like a champion. Get your head up.

4. Selectively engage them

Avoid controversy. It’s that easy.

Whatever you do, do not debate with them. For them, the debate is the goal. They want you flustered, emotional, and confused. That makes them smile on the inside.

So don’t let them win. Avoid topics that you know will turn into a pointless debate. Skip the “hot button” talks.

Don’t put yourself in the emotionally unstable position of trying to persuade unpersuadable combatants.

You will lose every time.

5. Ignore them completely

Shut them out of your mind. Completely. Act as if they don’t exist.

Don’t look at them, talk to them, or listen to anything they have to say.

The truth is that they probably have some great things to say. Between the pettiness and general nonsense that they spew at you, there is truth and some quiet brilliance.

Here’s why it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to hear it anyway. The pain from their hate clouds any value that they could actually provide.

So ignore them while you heal.

6. Get physical (finally)

No. Not literally. (Even though a part of you really wants to go there.) Sometimes you need to get violent… strategically. This is rare. And mostly ill advised. But it’s usually the final straw. You can’t be bullied. It’s not safe.

When doubters become dangerous you need to be safe.

Turning a blind eye to skeptics is not the same as being reckless. Sometimes you have to push back.

It’s that Old Testament brand of an eye for an eye. Don’t start here. But if you go here, be prepared to move from bluff to bold in a single audacious step.

Get Back to Believing.

Get serious about your future. Stupid people aren’t magically mending their ways and becoming your biggest cheering section.

They don’t care a lick about helping you realize your dreams and ambitions.

So just be better prepared.

Handle stupid people before they handle you…

6 Awesomely Edgy Technologies You’ve Never Heard About Before.

Dan Waldschmidt — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:07:03 +0000

You’re busy. And sometimes when you look around it seems like you’re missing that one edgy solution that helps you past the headache you have at the moment.

You’re not alone. (In fact, it gets better than that.) There’s a solution out there already just waiting to solve all your problems.

Someone else had the same problem you did and put together a solution to the problem once and for all.

Let’s take a look at awesome edgy technologies you might not have heard about before.

Sentimnt

Need to remember where and why, faster?

Sentimnt brings together everything that you read and helps you recall it when you need to remember later. Your email. Your tweets. Your RSS Feeds. If it’s a part of anything that gets in front of your eyeballs, Sentimnt helps you with instant recall.

Add your accounts and it automatically creates an index that you can quickly search any time you need to remember how things went down..

Noteleaf

Can’t remember that person you seem to always forget?

Noteleaf is right in your browser and it’s the ultimate notepad for keeping track of fun facts about people that you find across the interwebs. You can even connect and import your Facebook friends right into the platform.

And if you ever need to find a friend or search for a note about one of your contacts, you just tap your Noteleaf bookmark and out slides a little area to find the information that you are looking for.

Diphur

Need to stay sharp and aware of opportunities?

Diphur lets’ you bookmark any website and then notifies you the second that anything changes. And not just on the the exact website you are looking at – on any of the sub-sites that your bookmark references. It’s certainly an alternative to the 37,000 Google alerts you have set up trying to capitalize on any new targeting opportunities.

Ohh… and Diphur also tells you the number of Change Ups that have happened on the site. And if you’re busy Diphur even has a way to let you read things later instead of trying to sort out all the details at the exact time that you hear that the site changes.

Tagxedo

Need to make your data look sexy?

Tagxedo turns your words into pictures. And cool ones at that. You’ve seen a tag cloud before, but have you seen a tag cloud in shape of…. just about any picture you want it in?

Silentale

Want a “grown up” address book?

Silentale helps you build the perfect address book. To start it combines all of your online address books together (like Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter…). Then to top it off, Silentale sweeps through all your email accounts and fills in your address book with additional contact data. And if a key contact isn’t in your address book, Silentale creates a new contact.

Find all your contacts and messages in one easy place. Simply brilliant.

Zamzar

Need to crack that PDF or convert your files on-the-fly?

Zamzar converts any type of document or image or video or music or e-book or compressed file type to any other type. It’s very useful because you simply upload your file to be converted and then sit back and wait for Zamzar to email you back with the new file.

And if you ever want to grab a video from the web (like Youtube, Google, Blip.TV, or a dozen other sites…), you simply type in the URL and Zamzar downloads it and then converts it to the format of your choice.

There is a solution to almost any problem.

And there’s usually an edgy technology there waiting to save you a headache.

Try one (or all of them).

Why Distraction is Your Biggest Enemy. [an edgy conversation]

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:52:25 +0000

Nothing will bankrupt your dreams for the future faster than distraction.

Not lack of experience. Not bad luck. Not even the worst economic disaster in 80 years.

It’s you being distracted and it’s guaranteed to rob you of everything you ever wanted for yourself.

Take being a business owner for example. I hate to tell you, but the odds aren’t good to start with.

According to the best estimates, only one third of all businesses will ever make a profit. Another third barely break even. And the rest never even get close. According to a study by the U.S. Small Business Association only two thirds of businesses make it past the first two years and fewer than half make it to four.

It’s highly likely that even with the best degree, a hot product, and a massive opportunity market that your business dreams just won’t turn out to be the huge success that you imagine them to be.

Yes. It’s hard to think about. Frankly, it’s a little intimidating.

But here’s what’s exciting.

On top of all the facts and figures and premonitions of doom, you’ve figured out your single biggest enemy. And it’s something you hadn’t even considered before.

It’s s you being distracted.

And if you can solve your biggest problem, your odds for success just got a whole lot better.

So let’s talk about it. Here are a two reasons why distraction is your biggest enemy:

1. You can easily overlook the danger until it’s too late.

Activity doesn’t equal progress. A lot of effort doesn’t mean that at the end of the day you’ve done anything other than run frantically in circles. Distraction only amplifies that.

When you are really, really busy, it’s easy to imagine that everything you are doing will “somehow” make you successful.

It’s like you putting in massive effort is the magic fairy dust of karmic destiny creation. And that’s just silly. (And a little sad)

Doing things that don’t matter gets you the exact same results — results that doesn’t really matter.

And we do this in a lot of ways:

We talk about version three when the first prototype hasn’t even rolled off the assembly line yet. Focus on getting something produced. We talk about customer service and client retention philosophy when we haven’t even sold the first product. Focus on finding customers. We talk about company culture and corporate legacy without trying to improve our own attitudes and intentions. Focus on being a better you before demanding it of anyone else.

It’s easy to overlook the danger of distraction until the day the CFO walks into your office with that look and quiet pause as he hands you a spreadsheet with a bunch of red columns. You’re dead meat and it’s too late to fix it.

Distraction killed your dream.

2. You can always (seem to) justify your actions.

Just because you can argue your way around an explanation doesn’t mean that you are right. It doesn’t mean that winning the debate justifies you doing the wrong things. And frankly, since we are on the subject, don’t buy into the notion that being that guy that never gets proven wrong gets you anywhere closer to your goal of outrageous success.

That’s a massive distraction all by itself.

If you need to justify your actions, you might not be doing the right thing in the first place. It’s a huge warning sign.

You have to be brutally honest with yourself. Too much cake is just as bad as not enough vitamins. Both together make an bigger mess. And you trying to justify your way around distracting bad habits and guilt pleasures only makes you ever less likely to realize your dreams.

You can argue away your distractions. And for a moment you may even convince yourself that your actions are helping. But really you’re just leaving yourself less prepared than ever to actually realize your dreams coming true.

So don’t be distracted.

Apply a relentless focus on the key issues that get you to the future you want for yourself.

Get serious about it. Be prepared for your biggest enemy ahead of time.

—————

Want the 2-minute MP3 audio version of this Edgy Conversation?

Save this to your iPod or the desktop on your computer and listen to it again when you need a kick in the pants.

Get Edgy!

—————

12 Winning Perspectives to Drive High Performance.

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:41:17 +0000

Everyone wants to be a winner.

We like watching winners. We like having winners as friends. When giving a choice between winning and losing, we usually always chose winning.

But winning isn’t easy. You can chose to win, but that doesn’t really mean that you will win. It just means that you are making the choice to pursue winning.

It’s like joining the local gym. Just because you decide to pay the monthly fee doesn’t mean you are guaranteed to lose any weight. It all depends on what you do after you’ve made the commitment .

You can read the top 74 books on motivation and inspiration, attend every seminar on the subject, and work your way through every handbook and workshop you can get your hands. You’ll leave with some tactics and tricks and maybe even an amazing ideas or two.

But you’ll realize that winning (and the high performance antics that get you there) can really be distilled down into a single all-consuming lesson.

You have to control what you think about…

That’s an “all the time” thing too. What you think about, you become. That’s a rule that always checks out.

Your perspective on life then is amazingly relevant. Your perspective on winning (and the thought that drives you there) is a powerful weapon to help you blast your way through obstacles that slow you down.

In fact, let’s get a little more hands-on with this. If you don’t adopt winning perspectives you won’t be a winner. You might win a few times, but you won’t really be a winner.

Here are 12 winning perspectives to get you started:

1. Endurance

Long after the emotion of starting the journey, you must commit to continuing. You know it is going to hurt (a lot), but you decide to keep putting one foot after the other until you reach your goal. You will not avoid the pain and remember that it’s more painful not making it to your goal.

2. Individuality

Others may come and go but you are all you need to be successful. You don’t exclude, look-down-on, or rudely disregard others. But you don’t need their approval or emotional sustainability to make it to you destiny. Within you are all the answers to your problems.

3. Curiosity

The answer is out there despite what you are told. For every obstacle there is a solution. And you are persistent in finding it. You disregard pretension and common sense to get the answers that you so desperately need. You refuse to accept reality as the norm. You create what does not exist.

4. Wonder

Beauty is all around you. And you feel it. In quiet moments of fear and isolation you look up for inspiration. And it calms your concerns. The quietness fuels your passion. You replace the fear of what is not with the gratitude for what already is.

5. Belief

You trust in yourself. You aren’t a doubter. You are a doer. You believe in yourself because you are deeply honest with yourself. You believe that you will deliver what is necessary to overcome. Despite your detractors, your fears, and your past record of failure you make the choice to believe that you will overcome. That this time will be different.

6. Courage

What is hard to do is also what needs most to be done. You know that and resolve to make the hard decisions that others reject. You are brave in spite of the hurdles in your way. You are a testament of mind over matter. You use fear to motivate action instead of letting it stop you.

7. Compassion

To love is to truly live. You are empathetic and kind. And not because it gains you access or reward, but because it is right. Because when nothing else works, the power of love overcomes any obstacle. It is the ultimate enabler. It enables you. It opens your mind to possibilities that exceed your wildest expectations.

8. Introspection

Within you is the wisdom and power to accomplish anything you can imagine. Every sense of honor, nobility, and the endurance to overcome are locked within your being. You just have to pause long enough to be brutally honest with yourself.

9. Vision

You need to see beyond the limits of possibility. Where others see disaster and failure, you see a bright and promising future. That vision is what leads you around perils to the promising future of outrageous opportunity. And you create it all because you can see it.

10. Generosity

To get you must first give. You give even before it is asked of you. You give when you have little to offer. You give because giving pays back a little of the karmic debt you owe the cosmos. Because you remember that much has been given to you already. And that gratitude drives you to give.

11. Learning

What is not known first, you must learn later. You learn from fear. You learn from failure. You learn from triumph. You learn from the world around you and the people with which you interact. You learn from every interaction, every thought, every premonition. Because learning leads to winning.

12. Adaptability

Although you have a plan and a strategy, you are flexible. You don’t mind a detour and appreciate all you learn along the way. You don’t get frustrated by needing to bend. You anticipate the need for flexing and stay on your toes as you deftly tap-dance your way around the insurmountable odds that stand in your way

Ever see that dude that always seems to find the “silver lining”? No matter what happens, he comes out the other side with more passion and dedication than ever.

That’s not by accident. It’s a choice.

It’s you choosing a winning perspective.

Which leads me to ask you:

What will you choose?

Why CNN is Stealing your Soul. [an edgy conversation]

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:03:31 +0000

Have you read every best selling business book in the last thirteen-and-a-half years and still feel like there’s something missing?

Like no matter how many times you step through the guaranteed success road map you just read about that you never really feel satisfied. It’s like your dreams are a mirage. Your destiny is always another 12 months away.

Your problem might be CNN.

No. Not Anderson Cooper, Larry King, or Nancy Grace.

It’s the entire news-delivery business. The 7 o’clock news, the 11PM final cut, and the all the weekend special editions in between. It’s Fox News, CBS, and the Huffington Post political column.

It’s the populist sensationalism assaulting your senses and distracting you from your real purpose in life.

The “news” is on a crash course with your destiny and silently snuffing out your dreams for outrageous success…

You may not have thought about it before, but here are a few things to consider:

1. You always end up being the victim.

Ever wonder why you can’t wind up the news feeling anything less than slightly disgusted and completely compelled to jump off the nearest bridge? Sure you weren’t the person the story was about. You weren’t defrauded, exploited, or physically harmed. But for some reason you’re emotionally drained. You’re distracted. You’re decidedly passionate about esoteric talking points crafted for melodramatic mass impact. An impact that destroys your dream in the process.

2. The drama masks the needs for massive amounts of effort.

The sensationalism of every news delivery passively coerces us to think that getting luck or just working smarter are still viable success platforms in 2010. They’re not. After the worst economic marketplace in more then eight decades, you would expect that effort output would be at an all-time high. And yet despite the frantic demand for obsessive focus on mind-bending mental equity and physical investment, we find ourselves depressed and de-motivated. The antidote is activity.

3. You are never the winner in any possible scenario.

Left. Right. Risky. Conservative. Whatever side you take, you end up the loser. Sure you may side with the majority. And for a few moments you’re sure to get a surge of adrenaline from feeling like you’re leading the cause for fairness. But you lose. The only ones who win are the commentators. Meanwhile our dreams get left unfulfilled while we battle over opinions.

We have to change. The damage is dramatic. It’s the ultimate in self-sabotage.

We cripple our inspiration with the populist sensationalism of unapologetic argumentation. We trade away our passion in the fight to be right instead of examining our motivations for changing the world around us.

And slowly as we look for that extra effort needed to nurture the very seeds of our destiny, we stand soulless, heartless. Without the raw guts to realize the possibilities of an unlimited cosmos.

Stop betraying your destiny, dreams, and business acumen for a passionately-stated opinion.

You’ll find your 30 pieces of emotional silver hardly worth the loss.

—————

Want the 2-minute MP3 audio version of this Edgy Conversation?

Listen in….

Save this to your iPod or the desktop on your computer and listen to it again when you need a kick in the pants.

Get Edgy!

Actually, It’s (Always) What It’s Not.

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:06:54 +0000

Looks can be deceiving. In fact, more times than not what you see is not what you get.

It’s a facade. It’s like the Wild West of your imagination. And that’s not your fault entirely.

A lot of smart people put in (a lot) of time and effort to pull one over on you.

Think about something seemingly simple for a few minutes with me

The Shopping Mall.

To you and me it’s a place where we can buy trendy discount shoes, try on torn jeans, and model the latest Affliction t-shirt all within 300 steps of a food serving area where overcooked burgers, tasteless subs, and oversized pizza slices share space with less-than-authentic Chinese food being offered for free on a toothpick filled tray.

To the woman in our life, it’s a paradise of discount, style, and highly-tuned retail square footage.

But it’s actually a massive “coercion engine” at work. All the tricks of Las Vegas without the colored lights and dancers wearing peacock-feathered caps.

Ever wonder why:

You seem to lose track of time inside the mall and wonder “where the time went” when you leave.
Your feet get tired walking on the pathways but feel better standing in the stores.
You get frustrated having to walk across the entire mall to shop at the “big boxes”.
You sometimes get lost in the weird layout of the stores and have to check the maps.
You think the bathrooms are positioned in all the wrong places.

Guess what? Your suspicions are right.

Looks are Deceiving.

A simple thing like a mall is carefully created to manipulate your senses into appearing warm and friendly. Really — it’s built to squeeze every last dime from you.

Did you know?

Oxyen is pumped unto the mall to reduce smells like humidity which might warn you that a storm is on the way (which would cause you to leave early). Lighting is also carefully monitored to keep you shopping longer.
Walking surfaces are purposefully constructed to tire out your feet if you don’t stay in stores long enough. And there are always too few chairs so that odds are likely you won’t be able to sit down.
The biggest stores are purposefully placed at opposite ends of the mall so that you have to walk past all the other shops to get to where you really want to go.
There are very few right-angles. Hallways slope and bend instead of turn. Escalators going up and down seem to be located too far apart from each other.
Architects place bathrooms in places like the food court where you have to walk past “low resistance” pitches like bulk candy dealers and other “As Seen On TV” chotchkies.

It may seem passive, but it’s actually a highly constructed manipulation engine based on years of experience fooling buyers into spending more than they ordinarily would.

What you see (or what you don’t see) impacts the decisions you think you are making innocently.

So What?

If a silly retail culture can be manipulated to “be” something dramatically different than what it appears, think about what else around you might not be exactly what it seems to be.

Like everything.

“Very little in life actually turns out to be exactly what it seems like in our minds…”

That’s not because you are bad at hunches or your “gut instinct” switch needs a tune-up. You’re just being fooled.

It’s not just the mall. It’s the “conventional wisdom” that somehow get’s lodged in our brain, fooling us:

That the guy with the promotion is way more happy than you could be…
That cheating to get ahead a little fast means “it will be worth it in the end”…
That running from your job to a new job means you will help avoid the same problems…
That your lack of extreme effort is really you “working smarter”…
That the news you hear being reported is the truth…
That the excuses your client gives you are the real reason behind you not closing that deal…

Here’s a general rule of life, negotiation, or personal motivation: “It is always what it appears not to be… Always!”

That’s right. Appearance lie. Intentions and motivations can be tricky.

It’s a Legacy, Baby.

I didn’t think this up and I didn’t start this “the sky is falling” sermon. Very wise men left their solitude writing ancient proverbs to come down the mountain and tell us that “the grass is not greener on the other side.” It’s something we forget.

In this age of news at the speed of Twitter, we sometimes forget that (actually) it’s always what it’s not.

We forget that life is a little more complex than the simple black-or-white constructs that we like to place things in.

Life is a million shade of gray.

And depending on who is telling you the story, you should probably assume that it’s always what it’s not.

Batchbook Reinvents CRM [an edgy technology]

Dan Waldschmidt — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:11:40 +0000

Everybody needs a good way to keep track of relationships. For some of us, a quick trip to Barnes & Nobles yields a slim leather address book that does what we need.

If you happen to know more than a few dozen people you may just throw everybody into LinkedIn and use that platform to manage who you know (and who knows them).

Over the last ten years, the idea of CRM has been pretty mainstream — with Salesforce setting the standard for how CRM can really be an enterprise platform for running everything that we do. Sadly, it’s bulky and no longer charming. A lot of times, it just feels unusable for building rapport with customers and really getting things done.

And a bunch of new CRM platforms have jumped up to fill in the gap:

Landslide [link] — great at charting the sales process from lead to close but needs a better mobile solution
Highrise [link] — simple to use address book with deal tracking but could stand some more 3rd party integration support
Bantam Live [link] – adds team collaboration and Google integration to contact management but
Sales Nexus [link] – has email marketing built into an online platform but could could use some “prettying up”
SugarCRM [link] — the best open source alternative just grew up (with social media flair) but tries to be “like Salesforce”
Zoho CRM [link] – connects with three dozen other Zoho business products but is pretty unusable if you care about productivity

For me, BatchBook is the best new generation in high-performance “client relations”.

It’s what I use in my day-to-day “Conquer the World” strategy.

Here are a few views to get you curious.

Home Screen View

Arrange it any way you want. You can add contacts, search on Twitter or Google, check out your leads, review your press connections, and see the latest new newsletter sign-ups on your website.

Contact View

When you finally get down to see the details of a contact in Batchbook, you can see their updated information and any recent tweets. It’s pretty powerful.

Detailed Contact View

Find your contact on Twitter, Linkedin, and Flickr. If you don’t have any information for them yet just hit the Search Social Network button and Batchbook will do all the work for you.

Get Started.

It’s free to set it up for yourself. So if you are interested, go grab your own account and try it out.

Pain: How to Look Past the Shadows on the Wall. [an edgy conversation]

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:06:34 +0000

Pain is the primary driver for everything that we do (or don’t do).

It determines what we think about. What we believe is possible.

The problem with pain is that a lot of the time, it isn’t anything physical.

It’s a process that changes over time.

We stop twisting ankles, breaking bones, and getting bloody noses. Right?

We move from the playground to the battleground. From the swing-set to the headset.

Where we scar our minds instead of our knees…

It’s mental. Not muscle.

And while it looks like as a whole we are eliminating pain from our lives, nothing could be farther from the truth. We’re just better at hiding it from others.

We’re experts at appearing like “everything is alright”. In fact, we might be able to even hide it from ourselves if it weren’t for the shadows on the wall.

The problem with mental pain is that the scars run deep.

Betrayal. Loss. Abandonment.

The pain is gripping and intense. And it doesn’t go away for awhile.

It’s trauma in every imaginable sense of the word. So much so that we will do just about anything to avoid going through that experience again.

But just about the time you start to heal, just about the time the sting starts to go away, you see the shadows.

On the wall you see the scary outline of past pain. And you start to relive your fears and doubts.

Your breathe comes a little faster and your heart starts to beat a little quicker. All of your senses tell you that you are about to get hurt.

And that fear drives you to run. To stop being a high performer.

But there might be more to the situation if you look past the shadows. Maybe the shadows don’t tell the right story.

Maybe what you think is past fear and failure is really just a mechanical pencil wedged between a pizza box and the edge of the couch.

Maybe it’s nothing more than your brain playing tricks on you. Maybe the harder you look, the less you find to fear.

Maybe you look past the shadows and realize that:

Fear drives us to run while courage helps us to heal.

We all have pain. We all see the shadows.

It could be losing that big deal, working to get that next promotion, or fighting through past failures…

Just remember to look past the shadows.

Why I Hired My Biggest Critic to Be My Coach.

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:05:10 +0000

We all need someone in our face telling us we can do better.

Sure criticism stinks! But so does not getting to your goal…

In fact, that second part of the equation is the part that we can easily forget if we aren’t tough enough on ourselves.

And not that “don’t eat one more Twinkie” type of toughness. The type of toughness where you put yourself at the very edges of painful discomfort.

It’s that one hand on the branch hanging off the edge of the cliff type of discomfort…

Look. I get it. When you think of motivation, what first pops into your mind?

No one wants a middle-aged, masochistic drill instructor spitting inspiration six inches too close to their face.

Not you. Not me…

But putting yourself in that position can pay off big time for you.

In fact, there’s a darn good chance you’ll find yourself exceeding your expectations in a big way.

When I was CEO of ALSS, back in Washington, DC I was invited to join Vistage by the chairman of a local group. I had been asked to join Vistage a year earlier by another leader, but my schedule was way too busy for me to consider joining anything else. But this time when Lowell asked me to join, it felt right. And so I joined (8) other CEO’s — soon to be more than a dozen in the coming weeks — in meeting once a month for an all-day strategy session.

I was a member for about (15) months. Some of the hardest days of my life.

I was in the middle of growing my company to multiple locations up the East Coast while talking with buyers about selling the company and signing away $6.5 Million of money I didn’t have to the shareholders of the company in order to option my rights to the company. I was traveling non-stop, working for days (literally) without sleep, and training for ultimate fighting during my lunch hour. My marriage was a huge mess and although I was seemingly doing the “impossible”, I was becoming deeply depressed inside.

My one solace, was this group. Once a month I got the chance to spend the day with other executives who really understood the pressure. And I was about to find out that that was about to be over. In the middle of this horribly stressful time, Lowell called me one afternoon and asked me to leave the group. He was kicking me out: “I wasn’t right for the group…”

We had had several differences of opinions in the past, but I never imagined that “being annoying” would earn me the boot. I felt completely misunderstood. And pretty upset.

Fast forward two years. Lowell is my personal coach. I pay him hundreds of dollars per hour to push me in ways that shouldn’t ordinarily be possible.

Why Would I Do That?

Well, I realized that Lowell might be right. He wasn’t right about my motivations, my intentions, my strategy, or what made me tick. But deep down I realized that I needed to be a better me. He was right about that.

My relationships, my talents, my dreams, my ambitions — they all needed to be taken up another level or two.

So when the time was right, I hired Lowell to help me do that.

Here’s a few things to think about:

We can’t do it on our own – When things get tough, we tend to pull back. Sure we may push ourselves harder and farther than a lot other people. But those people don’t rally count. You do.
We need brutal honesty -- Critics can be cruel but they can also be honest. Think about it — their whole mission is to find that one little shred of slight evidence that you are full of sh*t and throw it back in your face as evidence that you are some sort of hypocrite. Stand up and listen. It’s painful. But inside the spiteful accusations are clues to unlimited success.
We really want to fulfill our dreams – Nothing matters more than you realizing one day that you have accomplished your wildest dreams. And that (sadly) is a rare event for a lot of us. Having someone shouting at you from the sidelines sure makes it easier to grab your dreams.

Who is your biggest critic?

You might not be able to hire him (or her). That might not even make sense. But you might want to listen to what they have to say. You don’t have to agree.

Lowell Nerenberg is my coach (and my critic). But he’s more that – he’s helping me be successful.

Who do you have in your life that is doing that for you?