Three years ago, I started cre8Buzz. It was a social networking site, that combined, Facebook, Twitter (not that we knew that then), Yahoo Buzz, and Myspace. cre8Buzz was about getting “buzz” for the best content on the web, regardless of the size of the persons social graph. It was a good run, we had a lot of fun, but in the end we didn’t raise enough money to keep it going.

We just finished cre8Buzz’s taxes today and realized we made a terrible mistake. We registered as a C Coporation.

Why was this bad? It was bad for the founders. We put a lot of money into cre8Buzz. It was founder money that kept cre8Buzz going in between funding rounds. By registering as a C Corporation the founders are unable take the tax losses.

I have started several businesses and never created a C Corporation. In hind-site, I don’t recall why we chose to be a C Corporation. Regardless, it was a terrible decision.

Fred Wilson had a good post on the different types of corporate entities you can start (LLC, S-Corp, C Corp.) When starting your first business, the type of entity you start can seem a bit innocuous, but it’s not.

Learn from our stupid mistake. Be clear of the goals of your business. Learn what entity will best work for you. Making the wrong decision can cost you tons of money or worse. It did us.

Ten years ago I tried to buy my last name, keenan.com Another Keenan owned it. He refused an offer of $5,000. I wouldn’t pay more for it. He has since sold it to a company called Keenan. I suspect I will never own my last name. That bums me out. Jim Keenan is also owned by someone else, although it’s an individual. I suppose, for the right price, I could have jimkeenan.com.

I don’t own my name and I don’t like it.

I think it is critical we own our online brand and that includes our names. I have bought my two daughters names and will be buying my, soon to be arriving, third daughters as well. I am securing their Facebook pages, their Twitter accounts and more. Will they use them? Who knows? But if they do, they will have their names.

Names are becoming a market. We can share names offline. We can’t share names online. User names and web domains are acquired on a first come, first serve basis. Once gone, they are gone forever. Depending on your name it could be very expensive to get after the fact. If your name is John Williams, expect to pay big. Deshawn Breznican, on the other hand, will probably be available for a while.

In a world were our online presence is the biggest asset we have, owning our names will be one of the critical investments we’ll need to make.

Have you invested in your name yet? The longer you wait, the more expensive it will be.

I wonder if we will see more Deshawns, Chantels and Matravius’s in the coming years. That would certainly solve the problem.

If I can’t get jimkeenan.com maybe I’ll change my name. How many Matravius Keenan’s can there be?

Lou Gerstner said, “I came to see in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game — it is the game.”

Culture is a fancy way to describe how a group of people act. Every group, community, household, team, has a culture. Get people together and they will start acting a like. It’s how we are wired.

The hard part isn’t having a culture it’s creating one that aligns with what your trying to get done.

Organizations can’t succeed without the right culture. The right culture means everyone is acting right towards the goal.

Plans, strategies, processes, customer service, sales, all require us to act. How we act is the culture. Build the best plan, have the best product, recruit the best people, it won’t matter without the organization acting right towards the goals.

Lou was spot on. If you want a killer company, a killer sales force, a killer call center, start and end with the culture. It dictates how we behave and success comes from the sum of our behaviors.

The teams that acts right win. Period.

My IPhone experiment is over. I’m writing this update from my Mac. That pretty much tells the story.

My MacBook shit the bed a week ago, just before I left on a week long trip. I couldn’t get it fixed before I left, so I had to use my IPhone for everything.

For context, I didn’t have to use my phone for VPN purposes, or to tap into any corporate ERP applications, other than Exchange.

What I did use the phone for was all my social interactions, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, blogging, (posting and commenting), email, and surfing the web.

The results of the experiment are pretty simple. The IPhone is a GREAT mobile device; literally. It’s a great augment for a desktop or laptop. It’s not a replacement. It did everything I needed it to. It just took 2 to 3 times longer to do it. There was an app for everything. I blogged using WordPress’s app. I took notes and saved info using Evernote. The Facebook, LinkedIn, and TweetDeck apps were great. Besides loading times, they were as easy, if not easier than the desktop apps. I used IPhone’s Safari browser for the web. It was SLOW! It was definitely a deterrent to browsing. Also, I desperately want to see plug-in’s for mobile safari or a browser alternative.

I used a couple of other social services, like BizSugar who don’t have an IPhone app. Using them without a mobile app was painful. Note to internet services, build a mobile application quickly, very quickly.

At the end of the day I was able to do what I do on my laptop. It slowed me down. It took me out of my rhythm. I had to change my processes. But, I was able to do everything I needed.

I missed my laptop. That is for sure. The plus, I am now better with the IPhone keypad AND like a good Swiss army knife, if I ever lose my laptop again, I know I can survive with my IPhone.

Afterthought-

What does this mean for the I-Pad? Will it close the gap?

The Weather Channel said it was 40 degrees out. That is too cold to play outside. I decided to take the girls to an indoor play place.

Outside we went, coats and all. As we stepped out into the sun, it became clear. It was warmer than 40 degrees. It was more like 55 and felt like 60 plus. We left the indoor play area after an hour and played outside.

Sales has it’s Weather Channel. It’s the CRM systems. It’s the pipeline. It’s the dashboard. It’s the metrics watched, and fretted over everyday. Like the Weather Channel, sales systems and metrics only tell part of the story. They take all the data, add it up and tell you what’s going on.

But also like the Weather Channel, sales systems can be wrong. The only way to know what exactly is going on is to get outside and see.

To know what’s happening with your sales team, you have to get outside. Dashboards, CRM, sales processes, and spread sheets only tell us so much. The rest comes from experience, and that only comes from feeling the rain drops, the sun, the wind and the snow. It may or may NOT be what the Weather Channel is telling you.

Robin Dickenson over at Radsmarts, posed a killer question; Is it OK for public speakers to swear?

This question has been ruminating in my head for awhile. Not just the question of profanity, but the idea of a reduced sense of formality; swearing in blogs, wearing jeans in the work place, access to authority, etc.

Are we becoming a less formal country and is that OK?

My thoughts are yes and YES!!!

The formality of this country has been steeped in its Puritan ethic, going all the way back to the first day the Pilgrims stepped onto Plymouth rock. It has dictated our behavior for 400 years. In my opinion, it has stunted innovation, communication, collaboration and engagement. It has created social hierarchies and limited the spread of information and ideas. Formality, is a social contract that says; “I will act a certain way until a particular level of engagement or interaction has been established” OR worse, the formality is the result of a hierarchical structure. It says; I will act a certain way because of WHO you are.

I say BULL SHIT!

The erosion of formal social contracts is accelerating interaction. It is getting to the core of issues. It’s not shackling ideas. It’s calling out the elephant on the table. It’s cutting to the chase. It’s getting real.

Professional speakers dropping F-bombs that enhance authentic, real, presentations where the swearing brings value is exactly what we need. Gratuitous swearing does none of this and therefore I’m not a fan.

I’d like to see greater erosion of social formality. It allow people to focus on the message. Informality puts people at ease. We let down our guard. It allows us to quickly assess our environment. Asking; is this a person I want to spend time with? Is this a message that resonates with me? Not, who is the person really. Are we still being formal? What do they REALLY think? Can I say what I want now? Can I be me?

Enough with the formality. Let’s get right to it. Let’s open the flood gates. If you are a swearer, then let em fly in your presentations. As Nick comments in the post: Be who you are, swears and all.

I think that people should be themselves on stage no matter what. If they swear a lot while talking normally, then they should swear on stage. AUTHENTIC speakers grab my attention, not their cuss words. -Nick Campbell

Sales teams need to be fixed; they stop performing, the market changes, the company launches new products, the team becomes complacent, the organization grows too fast and becomes beauracratic. There are a number of reasons why sales organizations need to be fixed.

If the sales team is broken, there are two places to look to fix it, the environment or the people. How to determine where the problem lies traditionally escapes sales leaders. Sales management culture almost always makes it a people problem.

The three areas were sales organizations break are the systems and processes, the people, and the activities the team focuses on.

If you want to fix your team assess what is hapening in these areas.

Systems and processes is a situation problem, not a people problem. People are people problems and the activities the people focus on could be either.

To get it right evaluate all three.

Does the CRM System make it easy to manage an account? Are good training and educational systems in place? Does the sales process enable sales? Are the systems the problem?

Are the right people in place? Do they have the skills necessary for the job? Is there a talent gap? Is the sales team hunters when it needs to be farmers? Does the team have the right people on it?

Is the team doing what it’s supposed to? Is it making enough cold calls? Is it spending more time doing admin work than selling. Is the team partnering or playing lone wolf? Is the team engaging in the right activities?

To fix a sales team the right levers have to be pulled. Evaluate each of the areas independently. Sometimes it’s a people problem,sometimes it’s a behavior problem, sometimes it’s a situation problem. Sales leaders need to know which it is. Not knowing makes it a people problem.

You can sell for today. There are plenty of opportunities to sell what your customer needs now. It’s easy and obvious.

Selling with tomorrow and next year in mind is different. It’s not so obvious.

To sell to the future requires you to know where your customer is going, what will be important to them and why.

Sell with today in mind and you’ll get the sale. But, when the next sale comes around you’ll have to start the sale all over again.

Sell with tomorrow in mind, and your customer will know when they will be buying again and why. They will see today’s sale as just one in many. They will understand today’s sale takes care of today’s problems and sets them up for fixing tomorrow’s problems as well.

Companies don’t stop changing, they aren’t static. So, why sell to them that way. Think about tomorrow.

I’m fighting the loser tonight. The loser is the little guy in all of us who looks to sabotage our efforts.

What sucks about the loser is he only hurts us. He never helps us.

The loser tells us to do it later. He tells us we’re too tired. He convinces us it’s not our job. The loser blames others when we screw up so we don’t have to blame ourselves. The loser is behind most of our failings.

The loser knows when we are vulnerable. And that’s when he’s at his best. When we are tired, frustrated, down, and feeling helpless, the loser in us springs into action convincing us that it’s OK to deviate from our goals, to push off our objectives or to avoid our commitments. The loser does everything he can to make us fail, to lose. That’s why he is called the loser.

The loser has been working on me all night. I wanted to do a blog post tonight. But, I am not feeling well, I have ton of other work, I wasn’t coming up with any good blog ideas and I had to write the post from my Iphone. (doing an Iphone experiment).

This is the type stuff the loser loves. It’s the ammunition he uses to thwart your efforts He uses it to get you to blow off what is important and then convinces you it’s justified.

The loser was telling me I didn’t have to, it was OK.

The loser is a master. He knows how to distract you and get you to take your eyes off the goal.

The loser will win everyone once in awhile. He’s that good. The key is to beat him more than he beats you.

He almost got me tonight. But, in the end I just couldn’t let him have this one. It never feels good when the loser wins.

To get where you want to go in life you have to get good at beating your loser.

How do you beat the loser?

Caring means you have to commit. Caring means you have an interest in a positive outcome. When we care the little things matter, we go the extra mile, we take ownership. Caring is hard. It saps our energy, it works our self-esteem, and holds us accountable.

Caring also is rewarding. It gives us a sense of accomplishment. It tells people who we are and what we focus on. Caring creates followers and builds leaders. Caring is a key part of success.

Caring is a lot harder than not caring Not caring is easy. It absolves us from ownership and responsibility. It allows us to make our issues other peoples problems. When we don’t care we avoid accountability. When we don’t care the outcome doesn’t matter. Not caring doesn’t make a difference.

Care about what you do. It makes a difference.

If you don’t care about what you do or the people you do it with, do everyone a favor and care about doing something else.

Even that will make a difference.