Have you seen something like this floating through your social media data stream recently? “Who wants to sponsor me to go to Overrated Conference 2011?” “I need a sponsor for my blog. Anyone?” “Who wants to send me to ABC for the WXY meetup?” Just look around. They’re everywhere. Seems that everyone with any social media presence, no matter now small, has glommed onto the “Sponsor me!” bandwagon. Unfortunately, 99.9% of those requests won’t ever get looked at, let alone acted on. Why? It’s simple, really. You want to be sponsored? You better damn well be sponsorable. What does that mean? What do you mean “I’d better be sponsorable? That’s not even a real word, Peter!” It’s a real word, [...]

One of my biggest problems is figuring out how much to charge, whether it be for speaking, consulting, or any of my services. I suspect a lot of us have that problem. We don’t want to overcharge, lest we don’t get the client/gig/project, but then, we don’t want to undercharge, hating ourselves while we’re doing it, knowing that the client would have easily paid more. I used to err on the side of undercharging, and I hated myself for it. I still do, sometimes. It’s frustrating. I’ve seen it happen out of business situations, as well – Paying six dollars for that trinket in Thailand, knowing that I probably could have negotiated my way down to four. It’s really a [...]

I spent a day last week speaking to a Fortune 100 company about the best ways to integrate social media into their marketing plans, and how best to use social media to help their marketing to continue to generate revenue. The majority of questions they asked me afterward fell into the following categories: 1) So how do we get more followers? 2) So how do we get more likes? 3) Should we hold a contest to get more followers/likes? 4) How do we get our followers/likes to spread the word about us? These are smart people. These people are the marketing force behind a company that interacts with millions of people through multiple brands every day. These people aren’t stupid [...]

First off – This isn’t some Tim Ferris garbage about how you can live on an island and only work between 5:48pm and 5:49pm. If you don’t love what you do, this isn’t going to help you, stop reading now, as geographic location is the least of your worries. I LIKE work. Hell – I LOVE what I do. I’m fortunate enough to have a good paying career in an industry that I love. I supplement my main career with a speaking career that’s quickly becoming a second full-time career – Finally, I consult to companies all around the world on marketing, social media, and customer service. So believe me – I’m busy. But the difference here, is that I’m [...]

Tried the US Helicopter service from NYC to Newark Airport yesterday. After taking it, I realize that I can never take a regular form of transportation to the airport ever again. It was truly awesome. For about $30 more than a car service from my apartment, I walked into the US Helicopter terminal on 33rd Street and the FDR Drive. Once there, I walked inside, checked in, (I was one of two people on the flight) and was checked in not only for the USH flight, but for my flight to South Carolina, too. Then I went through security. While I still had to take my shoes off, I didn’t have to take my laptop out! Now I was using [...]