Personal
What did you do today?
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How did you feel about today?
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What did you accomplish?
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What did you learn today?
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Did you meet anyone new?
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Family
What did you do today?
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Evening Check-In
Meetings Recap
Meeting with Christian went really well. He and one of his people from his previous business ended up starting their own architecture firm, so we dove into a lot of random things about owning a business. I definitely did a lot of experience sharing with them, and he seemed extraordinarily grateful for it.
Funny story is that Christian actually knows Trey Boden, who I met with right after this, so all three of us actually took a selfie together before he left.
Trey is fantastic. He owns a coffee shop in Decatur called Opo Coffee, and he's basically all in on the community building stuff that I'm doing. He loved TopGolf, met great people, and he's been becoming a Mickey Mellen writer web conference in October. He loved the idea of some of the social stuff I added to the conference. He actually offered two things:
- If we ever wanted to use Opo Coffee for anything event-related, I could absolutely do that. Opo has a huge outdoor area that we could use and a huge indoor area as well, and he said that could be all ours if we wanted it.
- If we wanted to do anything fun socially with this group, Opo Coffee does classes, so we could do a small 10-person class and teach people how to do latte art and how to do various different things with coffee that people might just simply enjoy.
The last thing I learned from him is that he has an idea for an event like 48 and 48. For reference, 48 and 48 is an event that Adam Walker and Jeff Hillemeyer put on where they build 48+ non-profit websites in 48 hours for free. They get a lot of people together to do all the website building, etc. What Trey wants to do is something similar but with branding and content and messaging. I love this idea, and pairing that with the idea that Daniel Sagona had yesterday of being able to use a space in Atlanta for free, I'm wondering if we can combine somehow this branding messaging workshop that I'm doing with Jaci soon, Content Day with free video, and the idea of bringing everybody together, small businesses and non-profits, and basically doing a Jump Start Your Business workshop. We get a lot of creatives together, we get a lot of small businesses to come in, and they basically prep their brand. They work with a messaging person. We have video stations pulled up everywhere, and they basically just get this huge download of free stuff from a lot of experts around Atlanta.
Deliverables
Honestly, it was a lot of meetings today. Didn't ship too much, but I also did make some progress on the page layouts for the TexBuilt site. I had that meeting on Monday and am feeling pretty good about the progress. I do need to spend a couple of hours on it today, though.
New Clients / Prospects
None.
Reflections
What worked today worth repeating: Social time with the people was fantastic. It was good just to get out and go down to Chibo Coffee in Lilburn. Loved the business owner there; he was a fantastic guy. Really happy that his shop has lasted as long as it has.
What surprised you: Nothing really.
What's bugging you / spark worth chasing: Chris Dubois has been really great about getting me a lot of really good content for the website. I just need to figure out how I want to turn a lot of that stuff into LinkedIn content, email content, the whole nine yards. Make sure that it all sounds like me. I'm glad that getting a lot of this stuff is going to make sure that I'm using it appropriately.
Open Loops
Today I need to make sure I spend a couple of hours on TexBuilt to get them to a good place before Monday's meeting. I also need to validate all of the pull request work that you did last night, because I want to get that into his hands this week as well. Next week I'm going to need to start the State Election Board work, because I kick off with them today.
Also today I need to make sure that I get all this primo stuff that you're actively working on up on the server and change it out. That'll probably take me about an hour. I should probably send some follow-up emails to folks about JC's event that I'm co-hosting with her and Mickey, because I also haven't heard back from anybody that I emailed. I need to figure out what a good email cadence is for events and stuff, because the emails that I sent out may have been too long. I don't know.
Podcast Queue
- The "Jump Start Your Business" event stack: Trey Boden pitched a 48-and-48 for branding/messaging. Daniel Sagona has a free Atlanta space. Jaci's brand/messaging workshop is already in motion. Content Day gives free video. Stack them into one workshop where small businesses and non-profits show up and walk out with a brand refresh, messaging, and video — all free. "We get a lot of creatives together, we get a lot of small businesses to come in, and they basically prep their brand... they basically just get this huge download of free stuff from a lot of experts around Atlanta."
- Community building IS the sales funnel: Two in-person coffees today with near-zero business agenda, and one (Trey) offered his coffee shop as a free event venue plus latte-art classes for the group. Christian happened to know Trey — three-way selfie in the parking lot. The compounding return on showing up for no reason is real.