Mark McCarthy's Blog

The DIFM Kid

I gave up.   January 1st was the day that I was done.

I gotta just focus on what I do well and maybe do that better.

Now I pay a 14 year old whiz kid (a friend of my son),  to just do technology stuff for me now.  “The DIFM Kid” (Do It For Me) is what I call him. (He is pictured here as rendered by my wife)  I don’t pay him a lot.  But the ROI is unbelievable.

Let him set up the Netflix on the Wii, let him set up my wife’s new Facebook Business Page, let him figure out how to connect the piano keyboard to the PC so we can record some of my son’s music.  Let him figure out why the wifi sync doesn’t work or why we need two Routers now because of all the stuff using whatever it is they use.

I’m not stupid.  Some people (and this is hilarious) think I might be a little on the  “techie” side of the ledger.   ( LOL- that’s called Acting man) but it is getting harder out there.  I don’t have the time,  but I have the need.

I just realized no matter how many manuals and instructions I read, or how many tutorials or videos I watch, I’m not going to get it.  Or I am not going to get it done fast enough.   Or sometimes I am going to make it even worse.   And maybe I need to focus on what I do well already and quit wasting time on stuff I don’t.

And now word has spread about “The DIFM Kid” and me using him.  Now everybody in the extended family is asking for him.  He disappears on Sundays 3 towns over at brother in-law’s house to go set up a new TV or to fix a slow laptop or to connect a transmitter to an outside thermometer.    There’s a darn waiting list for him and texts asking “When is “The DIFM Kid” gonna be around? “  Things are looking great for him.

There are a lot of us out there feeling that way, consumers and small businesses alike.

You don’t have to look that far to see that Do It For Me services are going to explode not just in my family but in the marketplace too.  I see them every day grow stronger and stronger where I work.    They’ve been around forever,  but now the speed in which new becomes old, or good becomes just OK or keeping up becomes “What the hell just happened?”  is accelerating at a pace where DIY ( Do It Yourself) might soon feel so yesterday. 

That smacks of opportunity.  Be ready- The next DIFM Kid could ( or maybe should) be you. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Your Resume:  What you think of and how good you are about getting or keeping customers  (the only thing any employer truly should care about)  will soon best embodied by your blazing trail on the web via your blogs, slideshares, tweets, posts and commentary by businesses and customers you’ve influenced ( or not).  Your web fingerprint is a lot more credible than that single pager of spin we’ve grown to love.

 Your Thirst For Big Numbers.  You’ll soon despise having 500+contacts in LinkedIn or 10,000 followers on Twitter.  Instead you’ll yearn for being part of as many smaller networks you can.  It’s a bit sad, but we are embracing ever more tightly, the belief that “the bigger the network is the lower the trust of those within it.”  Tough business this world of trust is.

Your Memory:  Well, at least the loose data stuff.  With the Googlization of the world and how it changes how we use our brains (it’s a fact by the way)  to find out about stuff,  you’ll need just a swipe or a couple of spoken syllables into your (insert wicked smart battery powered thingy here) to get that memory jogged.  Good news it that neuroscience studies show it leaves more focus for the brain to work on more important stuff. 

Your Social Skills:  Tragic but we’ll soon be hard pressed to remember how to make eye contact, know which hand to lead with to shake hands and remember that unlike IM, you have to wait for someone to stop talking before sharing your thought.  Forget “Virtual Meeting”,  “Flesh Meeting” will become two dirtier words. Happily,  when we realize what we’ve lost we’ll get a fresh start on new and improved social skills. 

Your Boundaries:  It will happen.  Meeting at10 am.  Meeting at2:30 pm.  Go home at4pm.  Play with kids.  Nice dinner at6pm.  Watch reruns of 3 and a ½ men (Sheen came back from the dead- it was of course, just a dream).  Meeting at9pm with New Zealand staff.  Sleep.   Meeting at8am in UK client.  Meeting at10 am.   Rinse and Repeat.  Global is big. Global is different.  But global is money. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

 Mark

Yeah, these words don’t go together anymore.

Big Network:  Nope, you have no network if it’s too big.    Smaller is better.  Smaller is more influential.  Smaller is more trustworthy.  Too many connections or too many followers and too many fans and trust dissipates and doubt rises.   Micro Networks are growing and will grow and grow and then will split off and get smaller and smaller.  And then rinse and repeat.

Sales Expert:   They call me one but I know that phrase is dead.  Sales is marketing is sales is teaching is sales is training.  It’s all blending together now.  Marketing people sell and sales people market (and are marketed themselves).  Trainers sell (because knowledge is the new hot product) and trainers market and customers sell and customers market for themselves or you.   I see it every day.  It’s not always comfortable but that linear business model is no more- the prospects dear friends, have said they want it this way.

Closed Sale:  It’s a new game out there.  Nothing is closed when the sale is done.   Nobody need be loyal anymore.  Nobody need be local anymore.  It’s all about wanting to want to be.   So when a sales is closed, that is when selling really begins now.  When a sale is closed that is when investment and calories and phone calls and unbelievable customer experience has to begin.  It’s too easy to walk away now.  ClosedSale?  Hardly – it’s only just begun.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Have a lot of followers on Twitter?  Nice.   A gazillion friends on Facebook? Cool.  500+ LinkedIn connections?  I’m happy for you.

Sometimes that don’t mean nothin’ though.

Marlene, one very talented trainer on the West Coast, reminded those of us gathered for workshops last week about the real value of a good network. 

A real network, Marlene taught us, is about how you compliment each other and how you leverage what is different about you.   A real network isn’t about how many of you there are or worse, about how many of you there are that are just like you all connected.

Marlene made us publicly identify the unique skills of our in-room “network” and record them in a literal (and of course, metaphorical) little black book allowing each of us to walk out with a networking gem.

“Use this book” she said “to tap into the help you need when you need it from your network.”

Thanks Marlene.  I think we sometimes forget that

• A real network aligns you the sales expert with Jimmy the time management guru because one day you’ll both need each other when you finally decide to go chase that dream together.

• A real network aligns you the online marketing savant with Sandy the offline marketing pro when that prospect you share just wants to grow the heck out of her business and yes she’s still got brick and mortar on Main Street. 

• A real network aligns you the call center supervisor with Art the field sales manager when Art needs to beef up his team’s phone skills and you need to start dabbling in feet on the street.

Networks need to work.  And while amassing lots of fans who like you (and too often are like you), seems to be the focus for so many of us today, the better approach should be asking how does this connection fill the gaps that each of us have.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark