willie jackson

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  • Squidoo Biz Dev

    My friend Lauryn is looking for an intern to help build something amazing at Squidoo, and I wanted to post it here in case this opportunity is of interest to you.

    I had the opportunity to work alongside Lauryn at Domino, and I’ve watched her truly come into her own. I hope you’ll get a chance to hear her story first hand.

    Without further ado!

    Hey guys–

    I hope all is well. I’m reaching out to some of my friends to see if they might know someone interested in a biz dev opportunity at Squidoo.

    As some background, Squidoo is the 69th largest site in the USA with over 50 millions views a month and it’s only 5 years old.

    It runs, talks and acts like a start-up and has the benefit of a power-house marketing and tech team.

    Given the rapid growth, I’m looking to bring on an intern for about 6 months to do business development with me.

    We’re creating the largest digital magazines on the internet surrounding a variety of topics and are looking to work with premium brands to engage our readership.

    We’re literally changing the face and feel of digital advertising (for the better) and I need a team to help me build this.

    The role will involve setting up high level partnerships with Fortune 1000 companies, creating the vision/strategy for our magazines and execution.

    The real win, though, is that the intern will be in a position to make money for themselves or any company they go to…

    If you know of someone who could use this boost, please let them know. They can contact me directly.

    Here also are a few tweets that you can post if you want to help spread the news and help me out in the search. No obligation to post of course. 🙂

    Now Hiring: @Squidoo is looking for a rock star biz dev intern. Only the bold need apply. Contact @heylaurynbee if interested.

    Wanted: Biz Dev intern for @Squidoo. Change the face of advertising for the better. Only the bold need apply. Contact @heylaurynbee

    Thanks in advance!

    —
    Ciao,

    Lauryn Ballesteros

    VP of Sales
    Squidoo
    www.squidoo.com

  • On preparation

    In my previous life as an IT Consultant, I once volunteered to present at a “community event.” It was an initiative on something green-related (I think) and I essentially needed to deliver the contents of a powerpoint presentation that was already created. Easy.

    In terms of promotion, things like this looked good. The main reason I volunteered was to challenge myself however, and to face my fear of public speaking. I wasn’t afraid to speak in front of others (I actually enjoy it), it had just been a while since I had gotten any practice.

    The night before the community event rolls around, and I find myself up at ungodly hour, Skyping with a friend who lives in Europe, and generally avoiding anything that resembled preparation and proper rest. I had endured many situations like this before, and generally relied on caffeine to see me through.

    I woke up in the morning feeling as drained as one might expect, and made my way downtown to the venue without breakfast (hoping to score some of the delicious (gag) croissants that go hand in hand with events like these, perhaps?).

    [fast forward to go-time]

    As I stepped up to the podium to speak, I was feeling good.

    Almost immediately, however, things started going sour.

    I stumbled over my words.

    My palms started sweating.

    My presentation was disjointed, and the tension in the room was building.

    At one point, probably five minutes into the presentation, my mind went completely blank.

    The room started spinning, my vision went blurry, and I remember calmly wondering what it would be like to pass out and observe (from what felt like a million miles away) the hysteria that would ensue. I clutched the podium hard, and lowered the microphone.

    I managed to laugh, smile, and apologize as I slipped further and further away from a strong mental footing.

    One one-thousand, two one-thousand…

    I don’t recall the turning point, but I remember taking a deep breath and composing myself.

    Three one-thousand, four one-thousand…

    I glanced up at my powerpoint slide and read what it said. Amazingly, I completed a sentence without bringing shame to my English teachers’s good names.

    I felt my balance returning, and pressed on.

    I got through the presentation, and actually finished strong. My manager was on hand to witness the whole thing, and immediately congratulated me for recovering. He told me that the presentation was solid overall, and I felt like he meant it.

    Several others followed suit, and shared gave me various versions of, “that took guts.”

    To this day, I wince at what I must have looked like for those painful moments. And what’s sad is that the solution would have been so simple: a few minutes of preparation every night before the event, a good night’s rest, and breakfast.

    I don’t regret what happened.

    I needed to feel the failure. I needed to feel the embarrassment. I needed to feel the pain.

    It won’t happen again.

  • Amazon Publishing

    When reading articles like this one, it makes me think about how fortunate I was to be involved with The Domino Project.

    Seth was clearly ahead of his time in thinking about the changing landscape of the publishing industry, and was obviously spot-on with the leadership he took to plot the course for what’s next. I shouldn’t be surprised when seeing how quickly Amazon is moving, but it’s humbling to consider in retrospect.

    Interestingly enough, I had dinner with a few friends this weekend (two of whom are bestselling authors), and we talked through what a traditional publisher—from a practical and financial perspective—instead of self-publishing.

    It truly didn’t amount to much.

    When you consider the ever-shrinking advances being paid to authors, staggering PR incompetence of some publishing companies, the control ceded when entering into a traditional arrangement, and the sheer length of time it takes to go from completed manuscript to finished book on bookshelf…

  • Unflappable resolve

    Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then. —John Wooden

    How do you deal with adversity?

    How about getting a speeding ticket, needing to pay a fine, being berated by a friend, stubbing your toe, or having your order messed up at a restaurant?

    Do you find yourself unfazed and able to roll with the punches, or do you react emotionally and determine that the world is out to get you?

  • A difficult question

    If you woke up tomorrow and found yourself without the need to work (i.e., you no longer needed to make money at all for anything, ever), what would you do?

    I don’t mean your knee-jerk response (perhaps a month on the beach in Bali or parasailing in the Caribbean), I mean after that.

    • Who would you help?
    • What would you work on?
    • What problem would you solve?

    Now what if you only had six months to live?

    Why do we wait for extraordinary circumstances in order to live the life we imagined?

  • Status quo

    During the first day of my class in college, a young lady sat down next to me, extended her hand to shake mine, and introduced herself.

    Hi, I’m Charelle.

    I was flabbergasted.

    Didn’t she know that we were college freshmen?

    Did she not get the memo that members of the opposite sex were supposed to pretend that the other is invisible, stealing glances from across the room? That the proper response when passing each other on the sidewalk would have been to stare at the ground and pretend it’s not happening?

    Who gave this young lady permission to behave like an adult?

    Just because a behavior is commonly accepted doesn’t mean you must subscribe to it. Many people take part in activities and exhibit behaviors just to fit in, to be accepted, and to avoid the terrifying responsibility of developing a backbone.

    I gained a tremendous amount of respect for Charelle in that moment, and remain friends to this day. The status quo is a dangerous beast, and waging war on it is in our best interest.

  • Brand disloyalty

    Yesterday I wrote about the human elements that create loyal customers.

    On the flip side of this is the company that plays by the book. The company that goes out of its way to not be personal. The company that tries to create machines out of humans.

    I’m talking about the business that locks its doors at 6:57, despite closing at 7.

    The business that punishes employees for showing empathy and compassion in dealing with customers.

    The business that hires expensive consultants to help extract every dollar from existing customers.

    The business that rewards employees for saving the company money at the expense of their customers.

    The business that has gotten too big to care, too disorganized to try, and too greedy to realize it.

    That’s how you lose.

  • Brand loyalty

    It’s not about the damn coupons.

    Or about the discounts or snazzy marketing or the social media strategy or the ideas are handed down by the suits making decisions.

    It’s the guy who asks me where I’m from when I place an order and give him an out of town number.

    It’s the guy who knows my name and drink order at Starbucks—the one who starts making it when I walk in the door, before the cashier even rings it up.

    It’s the server who tells me that instead of ordering A with a side of B, I can get what I want for half the price if I order X and substitute Y.

    It’s the phone call to make sure I’m enjoying the service I ordered, or to simply thank me for my business.

    It’s the driver who gives me the history of the neighborhoods as we travel to my destination, telling me to call him if I have any questions about the city.

    It’s not complicated, it’s human.

    And that’s how you win.

  • On quitting: part three

    [Read parts 1 and 2 of this story]

    I had two choices.

    I could either make some noise about the situation and tap into my network of people in the company with influence, or I could roll with the punches. It was a tough call and I was battling some conflicting motivations, so I decided to enlist some help.

    Seeking counsel

    A mentor of mine within the company is a Senior Executive, and I decided to seek his feedback on the situation. Despite his hectic schedule, he always made time to chat. Let’s call him Craig.

    I caught Craig up on the situation in Pittsburgh and how it was a little out of my control at that point. He made himself available in case he needed to “make a call” on my behalf, but I didn’t want to involve him in my episode of The Real World: Accenture.

    We talked through the pros and cons of leaving, how I might be a better fit for a smaller company, and about working for Accenture in general. Craig was connected to a few guys who ran a small consulting firm in Atlanta, and offered to make an introduction.

    I didn’t want to trade one hell for another, so I politely declined.

    A lateral move

    A few weeks back, I had seen an internal email about a group focused on social media best practices for companies. While I’m not a social media guytm per se, seeing an Accenture website running WordPress (!) was encouraging (it contained information on integrating the Facebook and Twitter APIs into projects for client engagements, developer resources, and the like).

    I mentioned this group to Craig, and we talked about me moving into a new position within the company (a lot more difficult than one might imagine). We also talked about what would be involved in creating a position for me.

    This made me slightly uncomfortable since I was almost certain that I would make a full transition out of the company that year regardless, and I shared with Craig that I’d feel an obligation to stick with it if they did something like that for me.

    I’ll never forget his response. To paraphrase, Craig said that as influential as he’d like to think he is, and with as much value as he’d like to think he adds to the company, Accenture would still keep on trucking if he didn’t show up for work in the morning.

    That really stuck with me, and I share it whenever friends who feel a sense of obligation to their company use that as a reason for staying where they are.

    The inevitable

    We chatted a bit more about the craziest idea: me going into business for myself full-time. Craig asked me the tough questions that any mentor would ask, and he quickly determined from my answers and conviction that I was serious about making the leap.

    As a matter of fact, he stopped drawing on the white board in his office, sat down, and make himself available for whatever support I might need as I made the upcoming transition.

    He knew what time it was.

    Onward

    I decided to take the drama as a blessing in disguise. Whereas before I felt a lack of motivation on account of my comfortable position (being able to take weeks off without pay is an odd luxury), I suddenly had all the motivation I needed.

    I let my Career Counselor and HR Rep know that I intended to resign, and fired off the appropriate email. There was an eerie calm in the weeks to come, as I had prepared myself mentally for the upcoming freedom and felt a burden — years in the making — lift from my life.

    The actual transition to self-employment was a bit anti-climactic. Friends I made online who caught wind of me quitting generally responded with, “that’s great man, but I thought you worked for yourself already.”

    Nice.

    Speaking, consulting, and joining the circus

    In the weeks that followed, I transitioned quite naturally to full-time freelancing. I started getting the proper rest, cleaning up my diet, and working out on a regular basis. These changes alone gave me a new lease on life, but my freedom is what I truly relished.

    Business was good. There was a steady stream of work, I was getting better every day, and I couldn’t have been more sure that I made the right decision.

    My friend Mike asked me if I’d speak at an upcoming conference, that he was organizing, and I happily obliged. Attending the conference were some fine folks from The Creative Circus, who eventually hired me to redesign their site.

    In an interesting turn of events, they asked me if I’d be interested in teaching a basic web design/dev course there. I had an interest in teaching and they needed the help, so I agreed. It was (mostly) great.

    Meeting Seth Godin

    I met Ishita through Pam Slim a few months back, and helped her with a redesign of her online magazine. (Interestingly, I helped her with another redesign of the site today.) On one of our first conversations, Ishita casually mentioned that she worked with Seth Godin and asked me if I had ever heard of him.

    As a matter of fact, I had purchased tickets to see him in Atlanta. That was Ishita’s next question, and she was going to invite me to the event if I wasn’t already going.

    The event rolled around, and I attended a small dinner with Seth, Ishita, and some volunteers the night before the event. To say that I was nervous would be a gross understatement, which is highly uncommon for me. I’m not into hero worship, but I had (and have) a healthy respect for Seth.

    During the dinner, we all took turns sharing what we were working on, and Seth provided some feedback on how we might make it better. It was great. Ishita tells me I was super-quiet during the evening and didn’t really get into it, but I never really liked Ishita anyway.

    The first domino falls

    This post changed my life.

    Reading it significantly altered the course of my life’s trajectory, more specifically. I remember thinking to myself that I didn’t quit my job so I could live a boring life. The day the submission was due (well…the wee hours of the morning, technically), I sat down at my computer and cranked away on my submission.

    The questions were ridiculous, and I had a great time applying. I didn’t have any experience in the publishing industry, but I didn’t consider that to be a bad thing. I checked my application for typos, took a deep breath, and clicked Submit.

    You all know the punchline by now: I was hired and moved to NYC less than a month later. My life has been a roller-coaster since then, in the best possible way.

    Meanwhile, in Harlem…

    I’ve been finished with The Domino Project for four months now, and I work full-time on 1) helping authors sell more books online, and 2) making websites faster.

    This has been an improbable journey, and I don’t even recognize my life anymore. I’m planning my first international trip (that’s right, I’ve never left the country), I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing, and I have the freedom to come and go as I please.

    The adventure has been much less about quitting my job as it has to do with living life. I have friends who are killing it in Corporate America, and they love what they do. It wasn’t a good fit for me, and I’ve had countless discussions with people who experienced the misery that I did.

    My passion for freedom and the desire for others to be liberated from the confines of a miserable existence is culminating in the Free Minds Movement, where Pam and I are thinking through how to tackle the issue head-on.

    I don’t know what these next few months are going to look like, but I see some bright days ahead.

    [Read parts 1 and 2 of this story]

  • On quitting: part two

    [Read parts 1 and 3 of this story]

    I flew into Pittsburgh that week a broken man.

    It was an odd combination of shame, relief, and fatigue, but the anxiety was gone. I actually felt better than I had felt in months since the burden of my secret unhappiness was lifted.

    It was in these moments that I started to feel a new outlook taking root: one that would no longer allow me to subject myself to continued unhappiness ever again.

    The week was clipping along at a nice pace, and it was made easier because (irrespective of my narrowly-avoided mental breakdown…) I was flying to Phoenix that weekend for LiftOff with Pam Slim and Charlie Gilkey.

    I know, right?

    I was close to my teammate Chris during this time, so I filled him in on the fact that I’d be taking a week or two off, the fact that I almost died, etc.

    Chris was younger than me and relatively new to the company, but he was a rising star on the project and I had no doubts that he could hold down the fort in my absence.

    The world’s most awkward conversation

    My manager at the time was a tall, headstrong, middle eastern man. He was a no-nonsense guy with many years of experience in corporate IT consulting. Let’s call him Fahim.

    Because that’s his name.

    We scheduled some time to chat about what was going on, and we commandeered an empty conference room when the time came. I took a deep breath and tried to explain the high points of what I was experiencing, and how I felt like some time off might be best.

    Fahim was nodded understandingly as I meandered through my thoughts. When it was his turn to speak, Fahim shared how many consultants had felt the way I was feeling at the time. He cautioned that some of them make the mistake of quitting on a whim and have to come crawling back for a job a few months later.

    “I’d apply to work at Starbucks before I came crawling back to this misery,” I said to myself. It wasn’t a knock on Starbucks, either. I just hated what I did for a living.

    As we were talking, the lights in the conference room went out. The door was closed, so it was pitch black. As I prepared to fumble towards the door, Fahim casually dismissed the situation and instructed me to continue talking.

    O_O

    So we pressed on. In complete darkness. Nothing awkward about that at all. Thankfully, the power came back shortly thereafter, and we were able to continue the train wreck under the fluorescent illumination of the conference room.

    The agreement is that I would take two weeks off and keep everyone posted about what I intended to do after that.

    My life as a traveling consultant was typically spent onsite (see: in a different city) four days per week, with me returning home (or at least going somewhere else for business or pleasure) on Thursday.

    And as I mentioned, I was scheduled to attend LiftOff, so I departed for Phoenix instead of Atlanta that week.

    LiftOff Retreat

    This transformational experience of LiftOff deserves its own post, so I’ll just give you the highlights:

    • I’m still in touch with the folks I met during the retreat.
    • I can trace between $10K and $20K of revenue that came as a result of my attendance (specifically, business derived from projects I came across through other attendees).
    • When I look back at videos of myself at LiftOff (shattered emotionally, 30lbs. heavier, and a bit unsure of myself), I see a completely different person.
    • There wasn’t anything in particular that I took away from the experience that helped me, so much as gaining the support system of crazy people who were in my corner. That’s all I needed.
    • During LiftOff, I booked three new clients.
    • Less than a month later, two of the clients had bailed on account of money issues.
    • The third client had plenty of money, but not enough time to stick with the work we were doing, so I fired myself.
    • The plane ride home from LiftOff is when I decided that I was definitely going to quit.

    The ramp up

    Upon returning to Atlanta, I started dipping into my Paid Time Off (PTO) so I could get my head together, ramp up business, and generate enough revenue to kiss my job goodbye. I also calculated what my emergency fund looked like in the event that I needed to live off of the savings.

    During this PTO, I was able to work from home without being bothered with project stuff, I had time to focus on my web design/dev work, and the stage was set to take off like a rocket.

    How did it go you, you ask?

    Not too well. As it turns out, I picked up a lot of bad habits over the years. The most sinister one — an issue that I have to be mindful of to this day — is sitting in front of the computer even when I’m not doing anything productive.

    This is dangerous is because a full-time job and steady paycheck is not (generally) impacted by an intermittent lack of productivity. Self-employment, however, is completely tied to personal productivity.

    As a matter of fact, I’ve found that success as a freelancer and entrepreneur is almost completely correlated with self-awareness and self-discipline. There is no separation of how you feel and how well you work.

    I took on a few projects, but they languished. I had neither the motivation nor the discipline to knock them out like I needed to. I think it’s because I was still suckling from the corporate teet and not actually in danger of starving to death.

    Not yet, anyway.

    The drama

    Throughout my time off, I had weekly contact with my manager, HR Representative, and Career Counselor. I let them know how things were going, kept them apprised of my timeline (when I thought I might be back working), etc.

    Fahim and I made tentative plans to chat one day, and for whatever reason, neither of us picked up the phone or cared enough to reschedule.

    I wasn’t too terribly interested in talking to him about the situation in the first place, so I let it ride. What happened the following week however, was completely unexpected.

    I got a call from my HR Representative asking me if I had been looking for projects. Perplexed, I reminded her that I was still technically on the project in Pittsburgh, and that I was just taking some time off. She informed me that I was being rolled off the project.

    As it turns out, Fahim took me not calling as me not wanting to be on the project anymore. Instead of confirming this with me, he mentioned it to the person responsible for staffing the project, and this set off a chain of events that I lacked the political influence (you don’t think success in Corporate America is about skills, do you?) to derail.

    Fabulous.

    I felt like my career was being hijacked. My conversation with Fahim resulted in the obligatory apology and acknowledgement of him being a bit trigger-happy, but this was little consolation considering the implications of his actions.

    Part of me was upset, and part of me didn’t care enough to do anything about the situation. What bothered me most is that being unstaffed meant that I’d need to start looking for another project much sooner than I had anticipated (or risk termination).

    I wasn’t ready to be fired.

    This is another reason my memories of Corporate America are not pleasant: there’s always an element of fear. Of not being in control of your destiny. Of external factors determining your course. Never again.

    [Read parts 1 and 3 of this story]