I was teaching my students about the power of being a good negotiator the other night and I thought I’d share some tips here. I generally do not share my advice on negotiation because I don’t want to give anything away that may help a potential opponent. However, I’m getting soft in my old age so I’ve decided to share ten things here that may help you:

1. There is no such thing as a win-win in negotiation. If you have to give up something you really want then you lose.
2. Act instead of react. If your opponent get’s under your skin then you may lose your cool. This will throw you off your game.
3. Know when to walk away before you ever walk in.
4. Negotiate on your turf.
5. Get your opponent to reveal their timeframe - never reveal yours.
6. Tactfully ask your opponent for information. Most sales guys will hang themselves if you let them talk long enough.
7. No is a reaction not a position.
8. Gain as much information as you possibly can before ever going into a negotiation. Information is the ultimate power.
9. View the negotiation as a game you must win.
10. Talk price last - never lose a deal on price.

Notice I used the term “opponent” over and over again. If you don’t view the person on the other side of the table as your opponent then you will lose the negotiation. If this sounds a little rough, remember this: you are paid to win not find the best outcome for both parties.

Thoughts?

I had my friend and former student, Ryan Money, CEO of Hirevue, come in and speak to my class on the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Ryan did a great job and left the class with a lot of knowledge. Here are a couple of take aways:

• If you want to be an entrepreneur to make money its a lot easier to just get a good sales job.
• The entrepreneur’s wall represents obstacles that stand in your way of success. There are walls in every business. You set yourself apart by how you deal with those walls. Passion for the business is what get’s entrepreneurs over the wall. (I once had a CEO equate it to warts - same principle)
• As well as you think you know your business, you don’t really know your business. Before you start anything go out and talk to 100 people who spend significant money in your industry. Find out the real problems. Get beyond the standard questions.
• Put together deals before you start your business. That way you start with a customer in your pocket before you even spend a dime. (We did this at 10Speed Media and it made all the difference in the world)
• Incentives your people to make you successful and everyone wins. (Great sales organizations are run this way)

I felt like I was listening to myself talk. I’m glad Ryan was paying attention in school . But seriously, my students really enjoyed their time with Ryan and I am glad he was able to share his knowledge and experience with the class.

Thanks, Ryan!

We’ll be doing the Mountainpalooza thing again this Friday at 2 pm at Sundance. This has been a great summer - let’s top it off with a hard core ride - one for the books.

All are invited so I hope to see you there!

If you need details, please click here or shoot me an email or a phone call.

When I was 15 years old my dad started a construction company. At the time, Oregon was going through a real estate boom and business was good. My dad put me on a framing crew with some rough dudes. They gave me all the bad jobs. At one point, I was up to my knees in mud hanging plywood sheeting off the side of a house. I was so mad I wanted to quit.  When I got done with that job I reported back to the foreman to find out what was next. He told me to get on my tool belt. I was a little shocked because this meant that I was probably going to build something. That afternoon I learned how to frame walls. 

From that time on I was still the grunt on the job, but I did a lot of actual framing work. After a while I started to enjoy the job. The sun was hot, we listened to the radio all day and I was starting to put on muscle. When we finished that house we stood in the street and looked over what we had built. I had this overwhelming sense of accomplishment come over me that I had never felt before. It was there that I learned the value of work. Where nothing had existed before stood a beautiful manifestation of our work ethic and knowledge.

I framed houses through high school and my first year of college until I left on a mission for the LDS church at 19. The work ethic I developed framing houses followed me to Florida. Missionary work was hard but I went after it with vigor. Ultimately, I saw great success in this work as well.

The lessons I learned as a framer have followed me throughout my life.

This last week I was in California for a trade show. The work was not physically demanding but you have to always be on your toes. I had set several goals for myself for the show and the only one I didn’t fulfill was the one I knew would be the most difficult to do: pass out 250 business cards. If you’ve ever attended trade shows before you know this is a hard thing to do. The show was still a real success for me.  

Building something is much more satisfying than dreaming about it. I know that Lee Gibbons, Podango’s CEO, had a dream about what he wanted to do for the conference. The difference is that he acted on that dream and made it a reality. We could have had a normal run-of-the-mill booth but Lee chose to make an impression - to act on an idea and make it reality. This is the difference between entrepreneurs and dreamers. Our booth and “unconference” was the hit of the show. I thought to myself that everyone who worked on that show must have felt the same way I felt after I got done framing a house.

Entrepreneurs, like framers, look at a 2×4, have a vision (begin with the end in mind), create a plan and then build house. Dreamers look at a 2×4, hand it to someone else and continue to dream about the house.

Which would you rather be? Or maybe I should ask, which one are you?

A final note… 

I am very proud of the people I work with. Doug, Lee, Leroy, Shalon and CT (you know who you are) were absolutely amazing at the podcasting show. I felt a little inadequate working with such dedicated and talented people. Thank you also to Julie and Tracy for your support. I truly believe that Podango is supposed to win. The model is amazing. I was telling Jason Calacanis about Podango at the show and he said, “You guys are About.com for podcasting. Right on.”

Right on is right. I am looking forward to seeing the success of this company. Its nice to work with framers!

Back in July I was in Orlando for the Affiliate Summit.  I went to one of the presentations given by Dave Taylor and in the Q&A session one of the back and forths ended with a person saying to Dave, ”well I’m not famous on the Web like you are.” Right then and there I opened up my laptop, fired up my aircard and went to Godaddy. I searched for the URL www.famousontheweb.com. To my surprise it was available! Yes, of course I bought it.

Here’s my question. Can a business be built off a great URL alone? I know that the general rules of business and laws of the universe still apply but could you take a great URL and build a cool business around that URL? Did the founders of shop.com come up with the idea of an online store then buy shop.com or did they get the URL and decided to open up shop because they had such a great URL? Did the founders of dog.com acquire the URL then decide that since they owned the URL they might as well open up an online store for all things related to dogs?

What should I do with famousontheweb.com? I have a couple of cool ideas for something fun on the side. What would you do with it? Is it even that great of a domain name? Maybe I’m up in the night.

Don’t be shy - let me know your thoughts…

I came across these figures today (provided by the US Department of Labor) on the top 10 fastest growing occupations in the United States between 2004 and 2014. They are:

1. Home Health Aides - 56% increase
2. Postsecondary Teacher - 32% increase
3. Registered Nurses - 29% increase
4. Customer Service Reps. - 23% increase
5. Nursing Aides & Orderlies - 22% increase
6. Janitors, Maids, & Housekeepers - 19% increase
7. Retail Salesperson - 17%
8. Waiters & Waitresses - 17%
9. Food Prep & fast Food Workers - 17%
10. General Management Positions - 17%

The only two positions on the list that require at least a bachelors degree are the Postsecondary Teacher (PhD) and the Manager. Where are the computer programmers, IT professionals, CPA’s, marketing consultants, teachers and engineers? This list scares me for a couple of reasons:

1. It shows how aged our population has and is becoming
2. It shows that our culture is too dependent upon fast foods
3. It shows that our health care expenses will continue to skyrocket - look at the supply and demand 
4. In general, it shows that we don’t have our priorities together

If we can’t start thinking about our competitiveness in the world then we will continue to slide to other countries that would love to eat our lunch like China and India. I guarantee that this list in China and India would not include fast food works and janitors. 

Before Abraham Lincoln departed Illinois for the presidency he recalled this story:

A king sent his wise men out across the world to search for an undisputable truism that would withstand the test of time. They gathered back together and agreed on this one idea: this to shall pass away.

Abraham Lincoln then said, “Let us hope this is not true of America”.

We need to wake up before its too late or this will be true of America. Also, stay tuned for a post next week that will illustrate the above problem with some real numbers.

I just came across this story sent to me by Connect Magazine’s daily email blast. Utah-based film maker, Loki Mulholland has produced a “mockumentary” called “Believe“. The comedy follows a multi-level marketing “representative” in his pursuit to recruit an average joe to sell Believe’s home cleaning products. Hilarity ensues…

The fictional ”Believe” is loosely based on Amway. Mullholland was an Amway rep in the early 90’s - obviously it didn’t work out.

The film made the news today because Mr. Mulholland is showing ”Believe” in Michigan where Amway’s former CEO is making a run for the Governors office.  Of course, his campaign isn’t thrilled that Mr. Mulholland is showing the film, which basically mocks the guy’s life and company.

“Believe” was financed by Utah tech entrepreneur, Eric Ruff, which is interesting. I’d like to know how Mulholland and Ruff got connected. I’d also like to know Ruff’s views on “network marketing”.

At any rate, I hope the film comes to Utah. The trailer is great.

On a similar note, check out this story on Thomas and Leslie Mower, the founders of multi-level marketing company, Neways based in Springville. The Mowers will be spending a couple of years in jail for tax evasion. Ouch!

I am sure this can only mean one thing: WAR.

Apple is attempting to trademark “podcast”. Read about it here. Podcast Ready appears to be one of Steve Jobs first targets. The only claim they legally have (and rightfully so) is on “iPod”, but it appears that they would like to own all variations on the word “pod”. So what’s Apple’s strategy? Take everyone to court that has “pod” in their name and get the courts to side with Apple. Will it even get that far? Most of these “pod” companies are small and don’t have the financial resources to take on Apple in court. Yes, of course the guys at Apple know this and that’s why they are doing it.  

I love what Jason Calacanis has to say on this topic (fight Apple all the way and make them look bad in the process). Apple better be careful or they will “O’Reilly” themselves in this process whether they are right or wrong. This has the makings of being a very bad PR move for Apple. No one likes to see big companies like Apple go after “the little guy”. Ask Nissan and McDonalds.

Its been a very interesting week for a lot of reasons:

• I nailed Podango’s first major sponsor
• I started to get the hang of working from home
• I bought my Canon XT Rebel (awesome!)
• I received the most intellectually insulting email of my life
• I discovered the joys of using Skype
• I had an old high school buddy find me through my blog
• My Connect article came out in print
• My Westminster students have been great in class and they are really getting it - makes teaching that much easier (thanks, guys)
• I rediscovered the joys of watching excavators and backhoes operate with my two year old son
• I gave out a lot of advice - I hope it was helpful…
• In turn, received good advice (thanks Doug and John)
• I finished reading 1984 - see my post on that here

By the way, what happened to summer? I’d like to get in one more Mountainpalooza before it gets cold. Who’s in?

I’ll be at the Portable Media and Podcasting show in Ontario, CA next week. If you’re going, please swing by the Podango Booth - even better come by Podango’s unconference and mingle with Robert Scoble and other cool podcasting people.

Anyway, I’m heading to Montana for the weekend. Have a good one!

If you don’t read Jason Calacanis, I would recommend getting on it. Jason is the CEO of Weblogs Inc., which was acquired last year by AOL.

I probably don’t agree with Jason politically but he is spot on when it comes to “Web 2.0″. His candor and strait talk is refreshing (reminds me a little of myself ). He’s not afraid to talk about any topic on his blog, which I like. Most people stick to one or two things and frankly that get’s old.

I really did not believe that the Weblogs Inc/AOL acquisition would work. I thought that blogging and Web 2.0 was way out of reach for the guys at AOL. Jason says that AOL is a Web 2.0 company. I find that hard to believe but by the looks of what’s happening at AOL, I think they might be coming around. Jason and his team seem to be changing hearts and minds at AOL, which I am sure is a very hard thing to do.

I have followed Weblogs Inc. for years. I remember when Jason posted about the company’s Adsense earnings. That was a huge moment for me. I woke up that day and started to realize that there was (and is) a revenue model for user generated content. That is when I realized that blogging wasn’t a fad - its was here to stay.

Jason, I thank you for opening my eyes and being the inspiration that got me excited about the Internet again. So far, its been a great ride.