I feel like I want to take a moment here to talk about negativity and positivity. I started making these stupid little 30 second videos for TikTok about a month ago with zero expectations of getting anything out of it other than an excuse to write, do some improv, and do character voices. I’ve been fortunate in that the feedback I’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, I’ve only really gotten two “negative” comments so far, which is pretty unprecedented on the internet. On one of my #ScrewingWithScammers videos where I answered the phone as The Joker (an homage to Mark Hamill ..read more

audio Block Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more This is really a story about expectations, but stay with me for a moment. I can’t think of many times in my adult life when I haven’t been working at more than one job at a time.   When I was a video editor for a local news broadcast, I was also working at Eastern Mountain Sports.  When I was working full time as a supervisor at that retail store, I was also a permanent substitute history teacher at North Catholic.  A few years later when I was running pr ..read more

This week, in addition to my normal marketing activity, I’m going to start playing with what time I post my TikTok videos. I usually post in the morning during the week, and this week I’m going to test a 3 pm-ish posting to see if the analytics change. But that’s not what I want to talk about this week. In jiu jitsu, we have a saying: your either win, or you learn. I have a different take on that: you learn no matter what, win or lose. For the last couple of Saturdays, I have had some relative success with my #ScrewingWithScammers videos that I’ve been posting on TikTok on Saturday mornings. T ..read more

Week of September 15-21, 2019 As TikTok continues to emerge as the newest platform with the possibility of challenging Instagram for attention and successor to Vine, I wanted to share the insights I’ve been gleaning so far as I’ve explored the platform. This video shows all of the posts I made to TikTok from September 15-21, and I’ve included screen captures of the analytics. (I’ll post them below as well.) My goal is to show people what I’ve been doing so that they can begin to formulate their own TikTok strategy. First, the video, and then some takeaways. Takeaways: While I haven’t been abl ..read more

This journey scares the crap out of me. I’m 41. My wife and I have a mortgage to pay. We have two dogs. What the hell am I doing trying to reinvent myself at this stage in my life? It’s simple: I’m pursuing joy. And while taking a leap like this is scary, I’m finding it’s a good kind of scary, like rock climbing, and as long as I’m patient and thoughtful about the process, the fear and risk can be mitigated. During my job search after being laid off, it dawned on me that I was likely going to have to take a significant pay cut and take a sales position, something that didn’t thrill me ..read more

BONUS CONTENT: Best time to post on TikTok In addition to my normal marketing activities this week, I’m continuing my exploration of TikTok. I had another (what I guess would be) successful weekend, hitting over 10k followers and a video with over 110k views. Look, I know that there are content creators out there on TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, Twitch, and whichever other social network you can think of where 10,000 followers is something that’s not even in their rear-view mirror anymore, and 100,000 views would be considered a bad day for their metrics. But that’s OK, for two reasons: That’s ..read more

Do a search for the people you want to reach on LinkedIn. This will be a more targeted search than Google, though you could do this on Google as well. The downside is you will need to sift through much more data. Once you find them on LinkedIn, look at their contact info. They may have shared a Twitter handle. Regardless, harvest as much information as they have made publicly available into a spreadsheet or CRM. Find them on Twitter. Follow them. Add them to a private list. (See video.) Interact with them. Take the time to see what they care about, what they are tweeting about, about ..read more

The internet is an amazing place.  Scary. A little twisted in some...OK, a lot of places... but the wealth of information there is unparalleled to anything we have ever seen in human history. Now, I think I am a pretty smart guy most of the time. But sometimes the blatantly obvious just smacks me upside the head, like, “Why didn’t you do that sooner?”  Or, “Duh! Of course you can find what you are looking for there!” The other day was one of those days. So as a part of my training with Edge Studios, I’ve taken their Marketing 101 class which went into how to prospect for clients and role ..read more

My finger hovered over the “post” button. It was Saturday morning, 9:55 am. I was debating whether to post a little video I made for TikTok where I recreated a scam call I received the day prior, and I launched into my Joker voice to mess with them. Would Saturday be a good time? Should I wait until Monday? I had mapped out my previous TikTok posts and engagement (likes, comments, shares, etc) in a spreadsheet the day before in an effort to see if there was some discernible pattern to how well a post performed based on day and time. I very nearly didn’t post the video. Then I checked the sprea ..read more

At jiu jitsu tonight, we had someone come to class who we haven’t seen in a while. She was training regularly a year or two ago, and then disappeared. This isn’t uncommon. Life happens. Things, people , and events get in the way. Boredom or disinterest sets in. Character is revealed. (More on that last one in a moment.) In the second half of class, we were rolling (that’s what we call sparring in Brazilian jiu jitsu), and she walked over before a round started and indicated that she would like to roll. Before we started, I said, “Long time, no see.” “Yeah,” she said, sounding down. “Life has ..read more