I’ve been using Linkedin for about a year. I really haven’t seen much benefit from the service…yet.  Paul Allen claims that he has seen an incredible benefit and Marty Fahncke has seen some benefit as well.

Right now, I view Linkedin as something of a popularity game. The more connections you have the cooler you are - kind of like high school. In October, I had about 35 connections. Then I got motivated to add more. Yesterday I hit 76 connections and I also have 10 recommendations. My goal is to be at 100 connections by the end of the year.

Can you help me hit that goal? Let’s scratch each other’s backs! Here’s the link to my Linkedin profile:

http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=3158154

To do an invite you will need my email, which is ctknud “at” gmail dotcom. If you don’t have a Linkedin account I recommend setting one up. After you do, shoot me an invite and I’ll join your connections.

Also, if I’ve worked with you in the past I am more than happy to provide you with a recommendation if you give me one as well.

Let the fun begin!  

I guess this was started by Jeremy Palmer. Now Janet is calling me out. So here are five things you didn’t know about me:

1. In high school I framed houses - my language has never been the same. One cold snowy day I was standing by a heater and my German army woolly pants caught on fire. Stop, drop and roll works really well in the snow.
2. I have an obsession with helicopters and Legos  
3. My first management job was as a warehouse manager for a food storage company.
4. I married a girl from Montana who hates horses and camping (she’s starting to warm up to camping)
5. If I could be a full time photographer I would do it in a heart beat. I’m still just a hack.

I tag:

Russ, Pete and Connor 

Any Utah entrepreneur or entrepreneur wannabe that tells you they don’t want to be on the V|Spring V100 is a liar. I already have a list of 20 or so people I’m going to nominate. If you want me to nominate you then drop me a note telling me why you are cool and I’ll do it. If you have words in your name like Money, Bob, Brock (and Jeff), Hanks, Tetro, Bott, Hall, Colin, Lemon, Don Loper or Thorpe then you’re already on my list. If I missed you then tell me so.

Click here to vote. 

Thanks in advance if you vote for me.

Lately I blink and a week is gone.

Funding Universe rocks. I attended one of FU’s speed pitching events for about an hour on Tuesday. It was so cool. What a great concept. Angels on one side of the table and entrepreneurs on the other. The entrepreneur has seven minutes to make their case. Paul Allen, the founder of Funding Universe, was there pitching WorldVitalRecords. Think about that - Paul was using the services of a company he started to help him raise money for one of his new businesses. Cool.

Phil Burns was there pitching TagJungle - looks like he may have some interest. I saw Devin Thorpe and Greg Warnock there - what great Utah assets. Newly minted angel investor and former CEO of recently purchased Mingle Match, Ben Peterson, was there as well. He told me he changes lots of diapers lately. I think we’re going to see big things from Ben (again) in the near future. Nimble dude and fight club manager, Jeff Barson, was there as well. The one guy I didn’t see there was Jeff Jordan. Apparently Brock still has him locked in a basement somewhere burning up the phones. I wonder if he’ll come out on Christmas morning? Jeff’s kicking butt on the sales side at FU. Way to go!

Look for my post next week on Grow Utah Ventures new online publication for entrepreneurs.

Kelly Anderson, who blogs at start up princess, is putting on a conference for Utah woman entrepreneurs. Check it out.

Scott Bourne - The real “podfather” - has joined Podango as a consultant. If you don’t know Scott, he was the founder of NetRadio. Having him sign onto your podcasting venture is like being blessed by the Pope (or prophet depending on your religion). Scott and I have developed a cool deal and I am glad to be working with him. Welcome on board, Scott. 

Podango is still hiring. Podango is cool so apply today. Contact me if you’re interested.

v|Spring is back with the V100. More on that later today…

Former Enron CEO, Jeffrey Skilling reported to jail yesterday. He was sentenced to 24 years for his involvement in the largest scam in corporate American history. Frankly, I think he got off with a light sentence. 

Now that Ken Lay is dead, Skilling is the only one left holding the bag. However, I think the lawyers who gave these guys the OK, the Wall Street financiers who backed these guys and the federal government who gave them the OK to do what they did (the SEC let them conduct market-to-market accounting practices, which is now illegal) all deserve just as much blame. Of course, Arthur Anderson got what they had coming to them. Frankly, watching Anderson implode was more shocking to me than watching the World Trade Center fall.

Now we all have to live in the aftermath. Because of Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley, the most sweeping piece of business legislation since the creation of the SEC, was passed. Now owning and running a business is more expensive and riskier than it’s ever been. It’s time for SARBOX to be repealed or dramatically scaled back. The legislation is horrible. It places the judge and jury role in the hands of auditors who are destroying corporate profitability to cover their collective butts.  

Thanks, Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay, Wall Street, the federal government and the rest of you who got away with murder. 

For more on Enron I recommend watching the riveting documentary The Smartest Guys in the Room. It’s brilliant.

My two year old son, Tyler, is an amazing kid. I am constantly in awe of him. I have learned so much watching him and listening to him. I started to think the other days about how things I am learning from him relate to business. Here are “Tyler’s Rules” of business: 

Sometimes you hit back. Now in business you’re not going to get physical but you do need to “hit back” and at times to throw off your competition and show people that you can’t and won’t be pushed around.

Ask “why” over and over again. Great entrepreneurs ask “why” over and over again. Asking that one simple question has been the catalyst for starting so many great businesses.  If your kid asks you “why” all the time them you may be raising a future entrepreneur.

View the world without walls. My son loves the show Oobi. One day he asked my wife if he could go to Oobi’s house to play. I love that. He has no concept of the problems associated with going to a fictional TV characters house to play. A lot of times we get run down or beat in business because we view the possible as impossible. Are we just lazy? Maybe we don’t care. Sometimes we need to let our imagination run a little more wild.  

When you need help find a partner. My son views my oldest daughter, Emily, as a sort of “second mom” rather than a sister. Emily is eight, Tyler is two. Tyler is two feel tall, Emily is four feet tall. Emily has a great command of the English language and she also speaks “Tyler” so she can act as a translator. She is a sort of “mentor” to Tyler. In business we need the same thing sometime - someone who is bigger and smarter who has been around the block before. I can’t overstate the value of good mentors.  

Don’t ask for permission. While my daughters are busy asking me for permission to do something, Tyler is usually already doing it. There’s an old saying about it being easier to gain forgiveness than it is to get permission. In business, good entrepreneurs break others rules and then make there own rules.  

Loud and obnoxious get’s you negative attention. Think “Super” Dell Schanze. Enough said.

If you don’t like someone then don’t play with them. Likewise, if you don’t like someone don’t do business with them. I like to do business with people I like. Plain and simple.  

What have your kids taught you about business?

This post is dedicated to my buddy Jeff Jordan at Funding Universe. Jeff is on a sales mission to bring home the bacon at FU. Here’s a great post on what he’s doing.

I’ve been mulling over some things I’ve been taught on effective sales lately. Here are some thoughts I hope you find useful:

• To become good at sales you need to understand relationships. You need to have real empathy. You need to be interested in truly helping your customer not getting some short term commission. You need to build trust by being genuinely interested in the customer and solving their problems. Dump the Zig Ziglar books and start working on your relationship skills.
• If you go for the short sided relationship sale then you’re missing the point of sales. Go for the long term relationship sale and rivers of money will follow.
• Approach sales with a consultant’s mindset. People naturally preceive that salespeople are out for themselves.  When you approach it from a consulting perspective then the sale becomes about the customer.  If the customer believes you are there to solve problems then they are more likely to open up and tell you exactly what you need to do to get their business. Consulting is about the customer - sales is about you.
• Give the client what they want not what you want to sell them. In your first meeting with your prospect you should ask 100 questions. You know you’re on the right track when a meeting scheduled for one hour goes two hours.
• Don’t give stuff away for free. People don’t value what they don’t pay for.
• In sales you will naturally encounter “walls” put up by the prospect. The way to overcome those walls is to SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND LISTEN TO THEIR PROBLEMS. Ask open ended questions then shut your mouth and take notes.  The number one skill in all successful salespeople is listening.
• Always make sure you are talking to the M.A.N. (Money, Authority, Need).
• If at all possible avoid selling over the phone. Its important to be in the same room as the client so you can assess body language and make sure that you have their full attention.
• Ask great questions: what are your goals? What problems are you trying to solve? What are you looking to get out of your marketing dollars? What do you like (or not like) about your current sales process? What do you dislike about your current marketing strategy? What are your competitors doing that drives you crazy? What keeps you up at night? How can I best serve you? If there was one thing that I could help you change what would it be? What’s the one problem you need to solve right now?
• Give customers a menu of products and services to chose from then let them tell you what they want. Then provide a custom quote with only those elements they indicated that they want.
• Remember buying your product or service is not an expense its an investment.
• To overcome customer objections LISTEN first to the objection. Then restate the objection to make sure you are clear on the concern. Then acknowledge the objection with empathy. Then overcome the objection. Don’t get offended. If you are to this point the customer wants to buy.
• To close the sale simply ask for their business. Its as simple as that. Like I said you don’t need the Zig Ziglar books. Just simply ask for their business. If they object then go back into objection resolution mode and then ask for their business again.

Solve problems, sell benefits not features, sell value, show value, LISTEN, educate, have empathy and build real relationships. Its as simple as that.

• Idea That Is Scalable Some might say that a "good idea" and a "fundable idea" are synonymous, but I disagree. One of the main reasons that they aren't the same is because a lot of really good ideas are not scalable. Let me explain...

Here’s a really random Friday round up… 

Podango is hiring. Check out my post on various positions here.

I’ve been spending a lot of time reading lately. I just finished Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Very interesting but the blatant liberal treehugger message got annoying after a while. I recommend “Confessions” if you are interested in learning how the US government, IMF and the World Bank control third world economies. I just started reading The Sorrows of Empire by former CIA agent Chalmers Johnson. So far it’s good. It reminds me of another classic I recently read - A Republic not an Empire by Pat Buchanan. You can see Chalmers in a great documentary I just picked up called Why We Fight. I thought it was a brilliant movie. Another great documentary to pick up is The Smartest Guys in the Room. Its about Enron’s amazing rise and fall. I thought I knew the Enron story until I saw this movie. 

In the coming weeks Grow Utah Ventures will be launching their new publication called Launch. I have been asked to sit on the editorial board with some other great people. Stay tuned for the official announcement of the launch of this great publication.

I had lunch this week with my former Provo Labs partner in crime, Blake Snow. We had the idea of doing a very informal monthly lunch with all the Utah Valley entrepreneur types. Would you be interested in that? Its just a bunch of people getting together that like to talk about business and life in general. Call it an informal networking lunch. Thoughts?

Question: If you were offered a couple million dollars to start one business what would it be?

I came across Tesla Motors today. Holy cow these cars look awesome and they are all electric. Very cool! I want one.

It looks like Tag Jungle is live. I played around with it tonight and they still have a way to go but congrads to Phil and the rest of the 42co team for getting it up. Last I heard Tagjungle was dead? I guess rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated.

Finally, I download IE7 yesterday and I really like it. Its taken some getting use to but its a great product.  

Podango is looking for a couple of very talented individuals.

Internet Marketer. Do you understand PR for Web optimization, online ad strategies, PPC, affiliate programs, SEO, etc? Can you write? Do you blog and can you maintain a corporate blog? Please contact doug ”at” podango.com if you fit the bill.

Sponsor Relations Manager. I’m hiring a Sponsor Relations Manager to work in my consulting group. That may sound fancy but the bottom line is that this is a hard core sales job.  I am looking for someone who comes with a radio ad or online ad sales background. I am very interested in any applicant who has been through radio consultancy sales training. National account management experience and a nice rolodex are also a plus. Please contact me at chris “at” podango.com if you think you have the right stuff.

Podango is a virtual company. That means you’d be working from home. Podango offers a great benefits package. We are also venture backed.  For more information visit Podango’s Web site or contact me directly.