The importance of getting out of your bottle

Source: Justin Metz

"It's hard to think about your own business from the inside. It's like you are in a wine bottle and all you can see is the back of the label. You need to get out of the bottle from time to time."

– David C. Baker

I have been extremely fortunate to speak at more than 30 credit union conferences over the past three years. When I am in speaker mode, I concentrate on being prepared, getting there on time, making sure that the technology gods are on my side and delivering a coherent talk. If I am lucky, I may get to see a couple of other speakers before grabbing a cab to the airport. I had forgotten about the pure joy and educational value of being a conference attendee.

To listen. To ponder. To absorb. To think. To question. To talk to other people in your shoes. Without worrying about anything else. For those credit union employees reading, you should relish those opportunities to get out of your organization for a few days to learn and reflect.

I had that simple pleasure last week at the Recourses New Business Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. This three-day seminar had nothing to do with credit unions, but everything to do with my business. The curriculum is tailored specifically for principles and sales people at small marketing firms. The two main speakers – David C. Baker and Blair Enns – provided great information on positioning, marketing and selling. And two special guest – Mark O'Brien and Christopher Butler – delivered excellent advice on content strategy and thought leadership. 

The New Business Summit wasn't a typical conference where a parade of speakers give you a small taste of a variety of topics, it was more like being in a classroom setting attempting to drink from a firehose. I imagine it would be something like a CUNA Management School or a CUES Institute in the credit union world.

A major difference between this conference and a credit union conference was the lack of projected slides. Three days worth of information without one single bulleted PowerPoint slide. Just confident, expert speakers talking to their audience. It was a joyous contrast to what I am accustomed to!

I'm a long-time David Baker follower and a Recourses client. In fact, other than my father, no other individual has had more impact on my professional life than David. He has long advocated for marketing and design firms to specialize. To pick an industry or a particular service offering and get really good at that one thing. Blair Enns also believes in specialization and he has dedicated his consulting practice to helping firms stand out from the crowd in a new business setting.

This advice runs contrary to the popular thinking in the creative services field. Creative types are addicted to variety and new challenges. The thought of specialization is typically met with disbelief and deep disagreement.

I suppose the same can be said about most service industries. You are well aware that the financial services industry is populated by undifferentiated players who think that they all offer superior service! With more than 8,000 credit unions and 10,000 banks in the US and Canada all offering pretty much the same products and services, it's nearly impossible to stand out. 

Now imagine my industry. There are more than 40,000 marketing firms in the US and Canada staffed by creatives who truly believe they are the most creative!

David and Blair's advice is always simple, smart and direct. I've taken their advice to heart over the years. The more finely specialized I've made Currency in what we offer, the more opportunity has come our way and the more effective we've become at what we do. It just takes time and discipline.

If you are in the marketing business – whether it's design, interactive, public relations or advertising – you should attend the Recourses New Business Summit in 2013. It's a great way to get out of your bottle and start the year off right.

If you are in the credit union business, seek out a seminar or conference that delivers this depth of expertise and content. You'll thank me later!

Tim

Currency Christmas Confidential

With all of the Wikileaks fuss going on as of late it seems as though uncovering secrets is the ultimate gift this holiday season. With that in mind, I felt that it was my duty to uncover some little known facts about my unsuspecting coworkers!

On a serious note, as our way of showing our appreciation to our clients and to give back to those less fortunate this Christmas, we are donating $200 to a local charity in each of our clients' regions.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you!

Tim

The great blog purge of 2010

I began collecting RSS feeds in Google Reader in 2006 or 2007. I subscribed to any blog that seemed mildy interesting or had something to do with credit unions, banking, marketing or technology. Google Reader was an easy solution to keep up with new posts on my laptop and phone. But there was a point when Google Reader became largely unusable for me with too many unread items and too many feeds that didn't hold my interest. I used to be in Google Reader multiple times per day but that faded as Twitter became the way for content to find me.

I had some time today, so I decided to tackle my digital hoarding and relentlessly unsubscribe in an attempt to make my Google Reader usable again. I unsubscribed to any blog that hadn't posted within the last 60 days or blogs that didn't appeal to me anymore. I nuked at least 400 feeds. I was amazed at the number of credit unions that have given up on their blogs. I have to agree with Jeffry Pilcher in his assersion that most credit union and bank blogs aren't the greatest!

I was also surprised at how many industry bloggers have given up on their blogs as well. There are a few strong industry bloggers left, but there are dozens that no longer post. I think it's a sign of the social media times—it's tough to dedicate time to quality long-form writing (I say this looking directly in the mirror). Easier mediums like Twitter, Posterous and Tumblr have definitely taken over.

I'm glad I took the time to purge and I look forward to getting only the stuff I really want pushed to me again.

How has your blog consumption and blog creation changed over the past couple of years?

Tim

Hey, it's Young & Free Day on I Wear Your Shirt today!

Last year I bought a couple of days on Jason Sadler's iwearyourshirt.com. Our November 17, 2009 day was crazy with all sorts of exposure on MSNBC and the CBS News. Well, today is day two and Jason is well underway promoting all things Young & Free! It will be tough to live up to our day one, but we are definitely looking forward to the fun.

Head over to iwearyourshirt.com to catch the live show and the craziness.

Tim

20 years and 20 lessons learned

In January 1990, mid way through my final year of art school, I started a business. I was 20 at the time, had zero qualifications to be a businessman and had only had one real job (if you don't count paperboy at 12 and the fry guy at McDonald's at 14). That one real job was a part-time sign painter in high school and college. I am really dating myself, but my time at art school didn't even include computers (yikes).

20 years later and half my life invested in this business, I've learned a few things.

1. Do what you love
2. Work with people and companies you respect
3. Tell the truth
4. Get really good at something
5. Never stop learning
6. Abandon what's not working
7. Learn to say no
8. Don't take it too personal
9. Strive to achieve a work-life balance
10. Give your people freedom to excel and to fail
11. Have a vision and stand for something
12. Differentiate your offering
13. Don't underestimate the power of luck
14. Learn from your mistakes
15. Don't be afraid to ask for help
16. Treat people well
17. Not everyone will believe in what you are trying to do
18. Don't steal ideas
19. Never screen back red, it just turns pink
20. Laugh often

Thanks to everyone who has enabled me to do what I love and here's hoping for another fun 20 years.

Tim

Cooperative advocate Carol Schillios is living on a roof until she raises $1 million!

In Edmonds, Washington, there is a really nice credit union and cooperative advocate living on a roof with a simple dream: raise $1 million to support women and their families in developing countries. And she won't come down until she makes it. Her name is Carol Schillios and here is her campaign website.

Carol is asking everyone to donate $1 each to her Fabric of Life Foundation in conjunction with a small act of kindness. Read some of the amazing things that her foundation has accomplished to date.

Since going up on the roof on July 31, Carol has raised about $7,000, so she definitely needs everyone's help if she plans to get down anytime soon! Here's what you can do:

1. Donate a dollar (or more) and perform a small act of kindness
2. Tweet your one small act, along with this link to Carol’s site http://bit.ly/qQaec and the hashtag #imupontheroof. For example: “Brought coffee and donuts to the office today for my coworkers. http://bit.ly/qQaec #imupontheroof”

Carol is online and will see your tweets if you use the hashtag #imupontheroof. This will remind her that there are a bunch of people with her in spirit. Also, please encourage everyone you can to do the same by e-mailing, tweeting, blogging, Facebook(ing), etc.

Let's get Carol off that roof pronto!

Thanks,

Tim

Seth Green delivers the funny and the money!

Un-Broke: The Seth Green Cribs Edition

Kevin just forwarded me this link. On Friday May 29 at 9/8c, ABC will air a one-hour special called UN-BROKE: What You Need to Know About Money. This special takes an unconventional look at the fundamentals of everyday finance featuring Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, the Jonas Brothers, Christian Slater, Cedric the Entertainer, Seth Green, Sesame Workshops Oscar the Grouch, Rosario Dawson, the E*Trade Babies and more!

Now that's financial literacy done right! Could you imagine if credit unions all banded together and sponsored this? Now that would be awesome.

Tim

Random quote on Twitter confirms it: There are some stinky credit union websites out there!

I saw this tweet yesterday. It pretty much sums it up. It's ironic that credit unions continue to pour money into new physical branches and sadly neglect their online presence. Attractive and inviting branches are important, but so is having an easy-to-use and feature-rich website.

For every brilliant Vancity or America First, there are a thousand stinkers.

Tim

Human, humorous and helpful!

I am a member of Banktastic. It's a great financial-services-industry-resource-social-network-community thingy. The last couple of times I have logged in my dashboard says I have these two friend alerts from the same person. I have tried to accept them, but I get an error. Today, I decided to report the error and this is the message that I received back within about 15 minutes:

From: Mark McSpadden

Subject: Alerts that I can't clear

Tim,

Here at Banktastic, we believe friendship is something that has become too flippant in this age of social networks. Friends are added without a second thought and honestly we find this trend disturbing.

Therefore, within Banktastic, we make you fight for your friendships. A friendship is worth more than a few clicks. To reinforce this, we've randomized some friendships to not be accepted until after the 100th click. We hope this will help our members realize the importance and seriousness of social network friendships.

OK, not really. It's a bug we've seen a few times in some of our early member profiles and friendships. I'll clear it out this evening and let you know when you can expect an alert-free Banktastic experience.

Thanks for letting us know about it! (And for being my creative outlet for the day!)

Mark McSpadden

xxx-xxx-xxxx"

I loved this response. In this canned-message-mechanical-contact-center era, it's nice to receive a human, helpful and mighty humorous response. Is it appropriate for Banktastic? You bet. Is it appropriate for your credit union? Maybe not, but I sure hope that your frontline staff are allowed to deviate from the script. This experience once again proved to me that a brand is so much more than just a logo and a set of standards!

Tim

Josh Sutherland is the 2009 Young & Free Spokesperson!

Josh Sutherland joins Larissa Walkiw, DeAndre' Upshaw and Myles Peterman in the exclusive Young & Free Spokester Club!

I flew into Charleston, South Carolina on Monday evening and on Tuesday afternoon, I accompanied the blue-shirted gang from South Carolina Federal Credit Union to surprise Josh with a job offer to become the 2009 Young & Free SC Spokesperson!

I then quickly edited and uploaded the above video to YouTube in time for the live announcement on the radio on Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. on the 2 Girls and a Guy morning show on 95SX.

Josh and I spent the rest of Wednesday going over how to use his new gear and website. I finally crashed at 5:00 p.m. Wednesday and woke up in time for my 10:00 a.m. flight home on Thursday. A fast and furious and super fun trip!

This was one of my favorite videos that Josh submitted during his campaign to become the Young & Free SC Spokesperson. A simple explanation of the difference between banks, credit unions and piggy banks!

An interesting fact that I learned during Josh's campaign was that although he had extensive experience in high school and in university on high-end gear and software, he no longer had access to these tools since graduation. He filmed his videos on a point-and-shoot Canon digital photo camera and edited them using Windows Movie Maker. It goes to show that content is king and equipment is secondary!

He's now equipped with an HD Canon camera, a Macbook and Final Cut Express, so watch out world.

Congratulations Josh and best of luck with your new job!

Tim