Alberta Business Marketing

Last Tuesday when I skipped out of the HTG meeting with Aaron Booker to see our good buddy Jeremy Epstein speak at the Microsoft Dallas office and didn’t realize what a great reminder I was about to receive on the power of raving fans.

Jeremy Epstein is a marketing guru from Washington, DC. This guy has everything screwed on tight and I am very fortunate to have him as a friend and colleague.  Beside being a friend of Mrs. Epstein’s son Jeremy, I am a raving fan of this guy and when I have an opportunity I toot the Epstein horn.  I stop at getting his face tattooed on my butt, that would be disgusting but let’s look at tattoos for a second and raving fans.

What is the world most popular motorcycle? I bet you will say Harley Davidson.  People spend thousands on Harley’s shirts, wallets with chains and much more.  What other bike manufacturer has 4o year old accountants who dress up on the weekends as bad-ass motorcycle dudes and have Harley tattoos on their body.

Does your business have fans like this?  Hmmm, I don’t think so.  But wouldn’t be nice!

Are there people out there who can’t stop talking about you?  No, maybe you need to look in the mirror then.  If you said yes then way to go. I believe having raving fans in your business starts with applying some of the Go-Giver principles.  Then treating people of respect and wowing the heck out of them so they can’t stop talking about you.  They speak about your business every chance they can, they blog about you, the mention your stuff in their Facebook statuses and they will bend over backwards to help.  I am a raving fan for many of my colleagues in and around Calgary.  From Information Technology firms, bookkeepers, leasing agents…and many more.

A true Raving Fan will be there with you through your darkest hours…hey, I am a raving Leaf fan…I know this!

Ulistic also has our raving fans as well…and thank you to those who share our name out there, sometimes 24 hours a day.

What are you doing to create raving fans in your business?

Remember this…on the extra mile, there are no traffic jams!

Tags: Aaron Booker, Calgary, Facebook, Human Interest, Jeremy Epstein, microsoft, raving fans, Stuart's ramblings, Washington DC
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Not sure, ask Varvid’s Aaron Booker from Bellingham, Washington. This Pacific Northwest technical guru recently packed in his MSP business in Bellingham to purely focus on what he loves to do..shoot video and work with people…almost similar to my story. Aaron now focuses on his passion of helping IT consultants, computer vendors and others in the technology industry tell their story through the lense of his Varvid business.  Learn about Aaron’s Social Media Video product at http://www.varvid.com.  We can’t forget about Drew and Mike as well…critically parts of the team.

What I truly admire about Aaron is his passion for being a Go-Giver.  This guy has the energy of an ox with endless amounts of energy, drive, determination and a heart of pure gold.  He never sleeps and the smile on his face proves it.

Aaron was a founding member of HTG3 with me back in November 2006.  I still remember meeting him and the rest in Council Bluffs, Iowa when I snuck away from IT Matters for a couple of days (Tony and Rob had no idea) to get involved with an organization that would eventually change my life and the way I see the world.

Aaron caught up with me this week in Dallas and shot some footage about Ulistic.  It was like we never missed a beat.

PS..Aaron it was great to get lost in Dallas with you on Tuesday.

Tags: Aaron, Aaron Booker, Aaron Corp, Bellingham, Bo, Council Bluffs, dallas, Drew, energy, Entertainment/Culture, HTG3, I T MATTERS, Iowa, Mike, Rob, Social Media Video, technology industry, Tony, Uncategorized, Washington
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If you have not read this book yet, stop reading this blog and run down to your nearest Chapters, Indigo or Borders store and get it.

I need to thank my good friend and fan of Ulistic, Dr. Leslie Roberts from GoForth Institute for recommending this book to me.  Thanks Leslie, you haven’t seen how much it has impacted my life yet.

Over the next few days, I will be sharing some key takeaways from Seth Godin “Tribes”. I have a few pages marked and ready for commentary.

First, if you have it, turn to page 96 and about half way down the page you will find this paragraph.

“The last person to leave the current record business won’t be the smartest, and he won’t be the most successful either.  Getting out first and staking out the new territory almost always pays off.”

Wow, is all I have to say.

Seth was speaking about the music business when he shared that small bit of inspiration, but I took as my departure after 15 years in the Calgary Small Business Computer Support market.  I haven’t been the last person to depart from something comfortable that put food on the table.  I had a chance to catch up with my great friend Aaron Booker from Bellingham, Washington last night and discuss his new business varvid.com.  Aaron is now servicing the technology community by providing high quality video production for conferences, trade shows and case studies.  He does some pretty awesome work.

Thanks Seth for that message.  It was really something I needed to hear and reinforced my knowing that David and I are on the right track with Ulistic.

Tags: Aaron Booker, Borders store, food, GoForth Institute, Indigo, Leslie Roberts, Seth Godin, Stuart's ramblings, technology community, varvid.com, Washington
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