Mike, Author at MK.com - Page 7 of 13

How Silicon Valley is Changing My Life & the World

By Mike on Jul 11, 2012 | 0 comments

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the IdeaMensch SF conference here in San Francisco. Being able to attend the conference and hear a stellar group of speakers share their experiences was absolutely amazing. Following the conference, I got the unshakeable realization of how lucky I am to be living in a place that encourages and promotes innovation around every corner. More specifically, there were three things that stuck out to me about Silicon Valley and the opportunities that it provides for people brave (and crazy) enough to try and change the world. Safety in Numbers Philip Rosedale spoke at the conference and completely blew away everyone in attendance. Specifically, there was one comment that he made about the start up frenzied culture here in the bay area: ‘People think that entrepreneurs are crazy; but in fact starting a company in San Francisco is a safe bet. There is 10 times the start up density of other American cities here in Silicon Valley. This is important because 9 out of 10 companies fail, and being in an environment that is flush with these connections is priceless. Why? Because you can completely bomb your own company, walk into a bar in the mission district and meet your next employer, co-founder or conceive the next big idea in the blink of an eye.’ That comment set off a light bulb in my head because Philip is 100% correct; I have literally walked into bars and seen formation agreements signed over shots of Fernet’s. The act of starting your own business in general is indeed risky — as Phil’s 90% failure rate confirms — but in contrast, starting a business in a location like San Francisco becomes the safe thing to do because of the resources & culture available to you as an entrepreneur. New Money is Fun I’ll lead into this point with a story: I took a visiting friend from New York out on the town with me one random Tuesday night. Aside from the general whiskey-fueled banter that’s the result of the night on the town, we also chatted about … Cherry: A mobile application that provides mobile car-washing services Uber Cab: A mobile application that provides taxis / towncars to users Get it Now: Mobile app that delivers anything you want for a nominal fee (plus tip for the delivery guy / girl) Part way through the evening my friend stopped the conversation and mentioned that she thought these were some of the coolest, innovative ideas she had heard of in a long time. She continued on to mention that any time the conversation shifts to business in New York, it’s always centered around Wall Street and the old money financial sector. Which leads me to my point … Old money is boring. It’s not innovative It’s not changing the way the world works as a whole And it’s sure as hell very exclusive with high barriers to entry On the contrary, new money … Changes the ‘status quo’ Creates new jobs, not replaces existing ones (*cough* *cough* finance, law, other old money industries) Provides the ability to change the way the world works in a positive way Uncertainty is Addicting There are times when the uncertainty of how a start up is going to continue to service existing clients, funnel new business into the company & pay it’s employees (either in cash or pepperoni pizza) is enough to knock a founder flat on his or her’s backside. But once you get a taste of that uncertainty, you quickly find something out … It’s addicting Just the thought of going back to a standard 9-to-5, forty-hour work week makes me sleepy. Bored. Disinterested. Like a guy who’s pretending to listen to a conversation in a restaurant but is really staring over everyone’s head to see the score of the ball game. The uncertainty provides a feeling of … Being alive Constant curiosity Growth Empowerment It’s a terrifying, awe-inspiring & completely exhilarating experience, but the uncertainty that Silicon Valley and the start up world provides is something that everyone should be lucky to experience at least once in their lifetime. I encourage you to go change the world and never settle for anything less than your best. Or move to San Francisco and do both 😉 — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

Setting 3 Month Super Goals

By Mike on Jul 8, 2012 | 0 comments

When I first moved to San Francisco, I took the time to write out a list of goals that I wanted to achieve on a poster board that I hung at the entrance to my bedroom. These goals were drawn up in three month increments — that is, I had three months to go out and complete the items listed on my wall. So I decided that my first set of goals should be based on personal and professional ambitions. The personal goals included … Meet someone new every day: Not done (too generic, as I didn’t define it very well) Give a gift to someone every day: Not done (also discovered this goal was too generic) The professional goals included … Land 3 clients in three specific verticals:Done YouEye VMware bioSPOT Find a charity to begin working with: Still on the lookout. Suggestions for bay area non profits that use technology to improve the world? Make 20 calls every day: Not done (ended up realizing that cold calling wasn’t the most efficient use of my time and canned this goal pretty quickly) Aside from the tangible professional achievements, what I learned from this goal setting session was … It Pays to Be Literal: Don’t set vague or conceptually debatable goals. This is easy to do professionally (land a new client, get a promotion, find a new job, etc) but is actually quite difficult when setting personal goals. Re-Visit Your Goals Daily: Find a way to visit your goals on a regular basis (saved image on phone, Evernote app, etc) so that you can continue to monitor your progress. Focus on Quality, not Quantity: Don’t feel the need to set a large number of goals for yourself. Instead, focus on a small number of tangibly measurable goals that you can track yourself. Share These Goals Publicly: Don’t hide from your goals — place them in a publicly noticeable space and discuss them with your friends & family. With that in mind … I’ve set four new goals for the next three months. Let’s see how this round goes 🙂 — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

Confidence Rules

By Mike on May 11, 2012 | 0 comments

Just wanted to pass on a gem of advice that I’ve recently realized to be 100% true … Confidence is Everything In the past three months, I’ve used confidence to … Cold call my way through 2 continents worth of assistants directly into the office of a C-Suite executive at a Fortune 500 company Went from zero to 3+ clients for my company Asked out a woman who was much taller & better looking than I am — and got a YES Advice I can share on gaining confidence … Get out of your comfort zone as much as possible: This will make you more confident when you’re in comfortable situations & able to smoothly handle awkward ones Write a list of things you’re good at: Figure out the weaknesses in your strengths and improve on those points Write a list of things you’re bad at: Use this list to make a secondary list of action items — what steps will you take to turn these weaknesses into strengths? What social situations could you use to improve your confidence … Concerts: Go to a concert — BY YOURSELF — and come out of the event with at least 2 new sets of friends (complete with contact information) Coffee shops: People tend to post up in coffee shops to work or read — try interrupting their space and starting a conversation that lasts more than 5 minutes Libraries: If you get a good conversation going in a coffee shop, take on silence at it’s best: in a library. Take the coffee shop exercise to the next level and start a 5 minute conversation with someone of the opposite sex in a library. What has confidence done for you lately? — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

Cherishing All That’s Important to You

By Mike on Apr 19, 2012 | 1 comment

Earlier this evening, I found out that a friend from many years back had recently lost his father. For some reason it didn’t seem real to me. All I could conjure in my head was the memory of a vibrant father figure; an enormous grin glued on his face, cracking jokes, playing obnoxiously loud 80’s hair medal music and just generally being a big bundle of smiles. Now, more than a decade after I last saw the man he has moved on to the next life. Which made me think … Am I doing a good job of cherishing all the special people in my life? You’d do well to ask yourself the same question. Even better, you’d do well to honestly answer that question. Cherish the people in your life. You never know when they (or yourself) won’t be around anymore. — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...

When it comes to cosmetic products, I’m the definition of an average guy: I have one stick of deodorant, one bottle of body wash, and one tube of hair gel. In essence: I don’t really give a s*** about high-end cosmetics products because they’re not important to me. So Imagine My Surprise When I Was Approached by a Cosmetics Saleswoman at the Mall Today I thought she might have been confused: Why would she choose me, of all people, to approach? Well, 20 minutes and $65 later, I realized how smart she was to approach me with the face cream offer. Here are the five steps that she used to connect my wallet with her product that all marketers should incorporate into their tool bag. 1. Doing Your Homework The saleswoman made a big assumption when she walked up to me: She assumed that I was a pretty regular guy and, as such, didn’t spend a ton of time or money on upscale cosmetic products. She then framed the problem and gave a solution: Problem: Men don’t normally take care of themselves by purchasing high-quality cosmetics because they’re ‘lazy’ or ‘uninterested’ Solution: Her product only takes an additional 30 seconds to use once a week It’s [next to] impossible to get a new client to listen to you if you don’t immediately prove that you a) know their industry / business, and b) can improve the way that something could be accomplished (i.e. ‘increase sales / efficiency by 100%’) 2. Setting the Buying Stage Encourage customers to get into the habit of saying ‘yes’ early in the relationship, as it’s a contagious feeling that develops a sense of trust between both parties. Also, by asking ‘yes’ questions you can walk customers into a mental corner where every answer became a ‘yes’. Questions that this saleswoman asked me included: Do you have a lot of face time when you’re conducting business? Do you look at someone’s face the first time you meet them? If you could fix any redness or blemishes on your face, would you want to? 3. Ability to Purchase When you’re taking the time to engage a potential customer, do you know if they actually are in the market for some version of your product / service AND can afford to buy it? Even though I wasn’t in the market for face cream, she knew that I was in the market to buy something at the mall by asking one simple question: What are you shopping for today? When I answered that I was there for a couple new pairs of sneakers, she was able to do the math and realize that I was already in the mindset of spending about $100 (estimate $50 per pair of shoes x 2 pairs of shoes = $100) and that I definitely had the mindset of buying something in the general price range she was selling. 4. Why Buy Now? I kept putting her off with the statement “If I want to buy this, I’ll come back in 3 days time and buy it from you.” Her response was this: Why wait? Let’s try the product out now. To prove her products worth, she applied the cream to my left arm and left my right arm untouched. The difference was actually pretty phenomenal — her product delivered! By demo-ing her product and showing me how well it worked, the natural next question became: What are you waiting for? 5. Why Buy Instead of ‘XYZ’ … When you’re connecting buyers and sellers, you have to prove that your product is the one consumers should be parting cash from their wallet for. So how do you frame your product to look like the end-all-be-all of products? Simple: Create an undeniably true statement that makes the customer realize that you are right. A good example of the way she framed it was … Her: “Do you remember what color my shoes are?” (me: yes, they are black) Her: “Do you know what color my eyes are?” (me: yes, they are brown) Her: “Why do you remember my eye color quicker? That’s right, because people remember faces better than clothing.” She completely disarmed me with that interaction because she was correct. I did remember her eye color because the entire time she was selling me, I was staring at her face. Anytime I sell someone on my own company, I look them in the face (specifically, the eyes) to establish a sense of trust. At the End of the Day … True entrepreneurship is about proving that your product deserves a buyer. How are you going about proving this on a daily basis? — Aside from being the CEO at MKG Media Group, Mike is a dark beer aficionado with a healthy appetite for travel and pushing personal boundaries. A proud graduate of Washington State University, Mike currently calls San Francisco home. Twitter // Google+ //...