Kevin Sandlin

Servant leader. Believer. Husband. Daddy. Entrepreneur. Blogger. I run @atltechblogs, @pitch_practice, teach #DGM @_GAAtlanta, mentor #startups at @ATDC

[kevinsandlin]

Pitch Practice June 26 2015: Red Velvet Cupcakes!

This is how we do Pitch Practice when a startup graduates from Atlanta Tech Village: red velvet cupcakes. Lots of newbies at Pitch Practice today. Here's who pitched.

Kevin with Endeavor - nonprofit that scales startups via access to global networks because startups have difficulty scaling. Endeavor is an intermediary and kind of incubator / accelerator. Starts with a foundation in each city and a board investment to fund the organization in the local city.

Tyler with Turn Solutions - marketing dollars are wasted because marketers are sending the wrong messages to the wrong people at the wrong times. Turn Solutions aggregates underutilized silos of data to create physical behavior patterns of your target customers so you can target them more accurately.

Pawel - Stocks You Love - potential new investors are overwhelmed with the Wall Street approach and need help. SYL is a virtual investment club in which everyone keeps their own money, but shares insights and secrets and tips. Pawel needs a web developer to build this solution, possibly a co-founder or CTO role.

Chas Lawrence with MotoService - motorcycles & scooters are fixed via dealers or local indie service companies. MS is building a nationwide brand of trusted brick & mortar motorcycle service centers. Raising a seed round to build a prototype shop to base the nationwide franchise model on.

A poem...actually a nursery rhyme in 30 seconds, but we never got his name, company name, or contact info. We do know that he teaches people how to grow their businesses through referrals.

Shane with Synapse Software - flights are delayed b/c of maintenance, mainly bc of the software. Synapse is replacing old software, white boards, excel spreadsheets, and other outdated maintenance management software with SaaS, aiming first at the small & medium regional and charter carriers.

The next time we meet for Pitch Practice will be our two-year anniversary. We always learn something new at every session of Pitch Practice. Here are the lessons we've learned through listening to more than 500 pitches over those two years. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1TSk1EF

[kevinsandlin]

Old marketing vs. new marketing: the only difference is data

I love finding old ads for products we used to own in our childhood or teen years, like this 1983 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Classic! I also am a huge fan of the series "Mad Men", which is the essence of old school marketing, better known as advertising. Back then, it was similar to the old waterfall method of developing software, in which you do all the planning up front, freeze the specs, and build for months and months until launch. They used to buy magazine and newspaper ads months in advance, and then measure the results in the quarters that follow. They used data, but very much after the fact.

Today, the basic operation is the same, but the game is so much faster. Digital marketing enables the marketer to conduct tiny, inexpensive (if not free) experiments to find the best avenues to gain market share, and then stomp on the gas when they discover what works the best. And then keep on experimenting. It's really amazing to those of us who have experienced it both ways. The game is still the same, but it's played at digital speed, rather than print speed.

We rely on data vs. emotions. I think there's a big misconception about the ads and campaigns they created in the Mad Men days. Yes, there was a lot of emotion involved (more in the show than real life), but the results were still measured in revenue, market share, traction, and growth. Back then, it took quarters and years see the results, and market share reports came in the mail.

The numbers (still) never lie. Doesn't matter really what you're marketing or how you market it, if your strategy is wrong, the numbers will eventually reveal the fault. If your strategy is right and your tactics wrong, the numbers will tell the story. The difference is that, today, you can determine whether you're on the right or wrong track in a day, not a year.

The new marketing is still marketing. That's my opening line for the General Assembly Digital Marketing class and bootcamp: "digital marketing is still marketing". What I mean is the goals are still the same. We just don't print a whole lot of anything anymore, but rather make sure it's responsive and looks fantastic on a 4" or 5" screen. But we still aim to reach people who didn't know about us before, and draw them into and then down the marketing funnel to become customers, and then engage and please them such that they become loyal advocates of our products.

All the data is there now. Don Draper had data...after the fact. Results data was all that mattered. Today, we have instant data on every move our users and customers make on our web sites. We can even watch their mouse clicks and put a cookie on their device and retarget them when they leave our site. We couldn't do that back in the day.

I have fond memories of implementing marketing campaigns that utilized the sending of a grayscale fax to thousands of colleges and universities, and then coaching inside sales teams as they followed up, "did you get the fax we sent over yesterday?"

Yesterday. Yesterday we had data to determine results, success or failure. Today we have data to see results in real time. Today we can take what was old, and make it look new.

This is actually MY 1990 Grand Wagoneer, photoshopped into an AT&T ad in 2012. Amazing.

reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1BFwN3k

[kevinsandlin]

Each day begins in the kitchen

This is the fourth post in our series of stories from behind the scenes at Atlanta Mission. This story was originally posted on Atlanta Tech Blogs.

One of the most common topics that comes up anytime the subject of homelessness is discussed is meals. We assume that if someone is homeless, they are hungry. We assume they don't know where their next meal is coming from. Meals are the most visible part of what Atlanta Mission provides, but there's far more to it than serving meals. Atlanta Mission, at The Sherpherd's Inn in downtown Atlanta, right across the street from the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coke, and the Center for Civil & Human Rights complexes at Centennial Olympic Park, serves over 1,000 meals each day to homeless people, all of whom have a different story and are on a different journey. Anyone can come and get breakfast or dinner any day of the week, any time of the year. However, it's what goes on inside the kitchen that can make a difference in these lives. Plates A short while ago, a former resident of the Shepherd's Inn took over the management of the kitchen at the facility. Because he once ate his meals there, he brought an entirely different perspective to how the kitchen should operate. Too often on the streets of the city, the men who eat a meal at the Shepherd's Inn are treated like cattle, dehumanized so that we don't have to face the reality that they are real people just like you and me who made poor decisions, and "but for the grace of God go I..." The first thing he did was change out the trays - you know the ones, with the little square compartments like we used in elementary school? - for regular real dinner plates.

"This isn't a cafeteria. It's a kitchen. We may be the only family some of these men have. Let's make them feel like it's home. When you're at home, you eat dinner on a plate."

Decisions Next, he implemented something that seems very out of the ordinary at what most people commonly refer to as "a soup kitchen" or "a homeless shelter." The Shepherd's Inn has a salad bar. Why on earth would you put a salad bar at a homeless shelter? As I noted before, every person who gets even one meal at The Shepherd's Inn is where they are because of decisions made along the way...sometimes one decision, but usually a long series of small decisions that culminated in that person having to make life work without a roof over their head.

"Why on earth would you put a salad bar at a homeless shelter?"

It's those decision-making skills that are at the core of the programs that Atlanta Mission implements in the lives of those who are accepted into their Personal Development Program. Giving an individual the power to make a small decision on their own gives them the practice and confidence to make a good decision outside the safer confines of the Shepherd's Inn. Choosing between a regular meal and a salad is a safe decision. Not much bad can result from that choice, and yet it's a choice that the people who come to Atlanta Mission for a meal must make on their own. Community What do you enjoy doing most at 4AM? Most people will quickly answer "sleeping." Would that change if you were able to do something for someone who really needed it with people who love you? The men who work in the kitchen at The Shepherd's Inn have a different outlook on that 4AM hour. For these men, it's their joy to rise early and prepare breakfast for hundreds of their brethren. They laugh together, work together, and they pray together. There's nothing harder than trying to do life alone. Imagine how hard it must be to do life alone with no home. These men have traveled many different journeys to get where they are today, but here in this kitchen at 4AM, they are friends and brothers. They have a community that they have never known before. Purpose That's part of why these men are happy to get up at 4AM and go to work for their brothers and sisters. The other parts include more intangibles that, while we can't see them and many times take them for granted, rebuild the spirits of these men. In casual conversations, when we meet someone new, we ask "what do you do?" We don't ever say, "tell me who you are," because for most of us, our identity is in what we do day in and day out. But if you don't have a home, and you don't have a job, who are you? Too many times, the word "homeless" is substituted for what a person is, rather than being used to describe their current, and often temporary, situation.

"For those who rise and serve in the middle of the night, this job is what they do, and it serves as their identity, their purpose. "

Experience When we have a purpose, we attend to it. When we attend to a task over and over and over, we gain experience and confidence in that task. Those who man the kitchen on a daily and nightly basis are gaining experience in starting, doing, and completing a meaningful task on a daily basis. Many of these men have held meaningful employment prior to this current occupation at Atlanta Mission; however, the decisions that they made pulled them away from consistent experience. As part of Atlanta Mission, each man has the opportunity to get good at something, to understand the need for attention to certain details that matter in a task. They learn a trade, a skill, a job, and a new attitude towards work that will ultimately help them wherever they go next, after they graduate. In the kitchen, part of that experience, that trade, that skill, is a new understanding of the value of food and where it really comes from. All the food served at The Shepherd's Inn is either donated or locally grown. Donations in the form of actual food or monetary donations for food come from people like you and me. When we work hard and create income, if we live within our own means, then we have the power and capacity to give in this way. So while support for Atlanta Mission is mostly from donations from people like you and me, it is also part of their culture to create sustainable means of providing food for people who are homeless. The new and growing trend of urban gardening is not lost on Atlanta Mission. The lot across Centennial Olympic Park Drive from The Shepherd's Inn is known as the Techwood Community Garden. The residents of The Shepherd's Inn help maintain the gardens there, and grow vegetables that are served at the meals that they provide each day. Friends We hear on a daily basis in the high tech startup world that culture matters. Culture is the only thing that is truly in the control of the leadership of any organization. The culture at Atlanta Mission is about far more than providing food and shelter. It's about changing and restoring the lives of the people, the individuals, who come to a decision to make a change in their lives.

"those dates are some of the 363 days each year when there are not people there to sit with and talk to"

We, too, as citizens of Atlanta, have the ability to make decisions regarding homeless people as well. Many times, we seek to serve at some place like Atlanta Mission at Thanksgiving or Christmas. We want to feed the homeless on those occasions, and there is no harm in that. However, after spending several weeks getting to know both the people who run Atlanta Mission and several of the people who are currently living there or have graduated and begun the next chapter of their lives, I would encourage anyone who is reading this post to serve, not on Thanksgiving or Christmas, but on March 19th or October 4th or June 24th or January 9th. Those dates have no special meaning, except that those dates are some of the 363 days each year when there are not people there to sit with and talk to these people who don't currently have a roof over their heads. Yes, of course they need food, clothing, and shelter, but they can get each of those from various places including Atlanta Mission. What they cannot get on a regular basis is a friend to talk to, because life isn't easy on your own, and it's even harder when you're alone with no home and no friends. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1Cu0u2k

[kevinsandlin]

Atlanta Gets a New Startup Accelerator

Atlanta has landed a new accelerator for startups. Those who apply and are accepted will go from hypothesis to customer discovery to value proposition to forming a co-founding team all the way through investor pitch during their time in the accelerator program, which will conclude with an investor pitch competition. The best part is all of this happens in one day. That's right, it's a 1-day startup accelerator, led by Atlanta's own KP Reddy, whom you know formerly as the GM of ATDC and currently as the CEO of Softwear Automation and Managing Partner at CTW Venture Partners, a venture capital early stage investment fund. This one-day accelerator will take place on Saturday August 1 at Opportunity Hub in downtown Atlanta. Here's the agenda for the day:

Hypothesis: Focus on hypothesis development, and then testing that hypothesis.

Customer Discovery: Learn how to properly do customer discovery and the importance of timing for this step.

Pain Points: Learn with a renewed vantage point when addressing the primary pain point you are focused on solving.

Value Proposition: Develop a definitive value proposition that you can communicate clearly.

Cofounding teams: Learn the importance of building strong diversive and inclusive cofounding teams.

Advisory Boards: Learn how to build advisory boards from a diverse group of people by sharing knowledge and experiences.

Pitch Practice (no, not that Pitch Practice, though probably better!): Properly pitch your idea and then practice in front of peers to gain feedback on your pitch.

Lectures: Morning Lecture will teach you important steps in lean startup methodology from an experienced, successful entrepreneur.

Here's what the attendees of previous 1-Day Accelerator events, including the founder of Atlanta's very own SPLIT, have to say about their experience. You can learn more about KP's style of instruction and mentoring on his blog, which he has recently updated and begun posting to more regularly. KP's experience, network, and wisdom around the entire tech startup experience are invaluable to the new entrepreneur, and anyone who wants to go can get $50 off the 1DX experience by using the following promo code when they register at Eventbrite.com: 2krbz Atlanta keeps rising as a tech startup center of excellence and influence. It's the natural path for a community that has so many excellent experienced entrepreneurial leaders, and KP is spreading the startup wisdom with this series of 1 day accelerators. I think that there could be many more of these types of events led by teams of experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders from Atlanta as they move into the next stages of their careers to train up the next generation of young tech leaders. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1Ll8PN1

[kevinsandlin]

It's not you. It's me.

I led an all day seminar this past Saturday at General Assembly in Atlanta. This class was a 6-hour event in which we compressed the 60 hours of the GA Digital Marketing class down to 6 hours, lunch from Chipotle included. Here's a good description of the class and here's a follow up to the last time we ran this class. This past Saturday had some challenges, and hats off to the folks at GA for pulling out all the stops when the Ponce City Market power went out on Friday night, leaving GA with no air conditioning all day Saturday. You heard that right. It reached 80 degrees in our classroom, but the many oscillating fans and ice cream sandwiches and popsicles made us feel loved anyway. And we used this problem to discuss the first aspect of digital marketing: branding. One of the most visible aspects of your brand is your message. What you say matters. Every word matters, because your brand is everything you do. The exercise we used to illustrate this point is outlined in this post on the General Assembly blog. It's a good way to find out (a) if you know your brand and (b) how well you know your brand. We walk through this exercise because if you, as the founder or entrepreneur or brand ambassador don't know your brand, how can you communicate that brand to anyone else, inside or outside the company? We start with - and for purposes of this post, we end with - the second part of this exercise: "what is the industry or market problem you are solving?" In creating this little exercise, the inspiration for this step is Simon Sinek's 2009 TED Talk and his book, "Start with Why." The class did this exercise, taking about 15 minutes to create the 4 tweets. Where we ran into the most trouble was this step number 2. It is a trend that I have seen throughout my teaching experience at GA and for 2 years at Pitch Practice that entrepreneurs have great difficulty distinguishing the problem statement from the description of their business. In other words, when I ask "what problem are you solving?" the answer I get most often is "we do this and that, creating value here and there and saving our customers time and money with these benefits," and then they proceed to list all the benefits. This answer is completely wrong, and it starts with the first word, "we". The problem you are solving has absolutely nothing to do with "we" or "you" or "I" or "me". The problem you are solving is a problem in the market that your customer has. When you are talking to a potential customer and that customer hears (ad nauseum) what you do, you've lost them. When you start with the problem that your customer has ever day (start with why), you make a friend. They now know that you see and understand their problem. Oh, and by the way, we solve that problem. This situation reminds me of this clip from Seinfeld:

When you're stating your problem, remember "it's not you, it's me", and "me" is your customer. It's all about the customer's problem. Your problem statement has nothing to do with you. Rather, it's why you exist. Start with why. Start with the problem, and solve it. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1LpZbKd

[kevinsandlin]

3 things that make it hard to tell your story

It is my business to help entrepreneurs and small businesses tell their stories. Telling your story with great, compelling, consistent content builds trust among your audience, and helps them know that you have a solution to the problems they face every day. Most entrepreneurs don't think they can tell their story, and they also don't think they have enough great content. Both are incorrect; however, there are several things that make it difficult for anyone, let alone an entrepreneur in the thick of building a business, to tell their story on a regular and consistent basis. Here are three things that can make it really tough to create great content on your own behalf in a way that is compelling and credible to your audience.

You're too close to the product. You invented this thing, this solution to a market problem. You know it inside, out, and backwards. You can explain every feature, function, and bug. You know where it'll be in 2 months and 2 years. But your customer can't see any of that, and, for now anyway, doesn't care. They want their problem solved right now, and you are not able to see the flaws that your customer sees instantly. It's not a hit against the entrepreneur to be "too close to the product." That's your job! But it may mean that you can't tell the story, explain the problem, or empathize with the customer objectively.

You are not your user. Just because it looks right to you and sounds right to you and seems right to you doesn't mean that your user will like it, know how to use it, understand it, or even care. How can you share what you're dreaming of from your perspective, when you really should be looking at the solution from your user's perspective? It's interesting to see how often an entrepreneur will fall in love with their own product. "I love this app!" they'll say. But the app is not for you. It's for your user. Do they love it? They might, but they might not, and the reasons they love it may be very different from your own.

You speak in your language, not the customer's language. One of the funniest and most entertaining things in every small business and startup I've been in is the jargon, the language, the acronyms. At the telecom startup that was acquired by First Data, we once named a module "Ope", which was really an acronym for "Order Processing Executive", and yes, there was also an "Andy", though I can't remember what that stood for. Someone actually said these things in a meeting with a customer. After some very strange looks, we explained what it all meant. The customer got a good laugh, but couldn't care less what we called our internal systems. They just wanted their information to get disseminated quickly and properly.

While you really must tell your story, especially if you're a startup or small business, it can be difficult, and these are some of the reasons why it can be hard. But that's ok, because "you" doesn't always have to be "you" personally. Your organization needs to create great content that tells your story as it unfolds and brings customers closer, and you can outsource that process or dedicate an internal resource to it.

The vision should still come from the one who holds the vision, but the words do not have to be typed by you personally.

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[kevinsandlin]

MY Bridge!

This story is the second in a series from Atlanta Tech Blogs. We have adopted Atlanta Mission as our nonprofit, and we will tell the stories of their work and the fruits of their labor. This article originally appeared on Atlanta Tech Blogs.

“It was MY bridge. My rules. My people. If you wanted to come under that my bridge, you had to come through me.”

Like a Boss in a Mafia movie, Joe describes the power he held. “I had a baseball bat. That was all I needed. I could take them down by the legs if I had to. But everyone understood that I was in charge.” And like a Mob Boss, Joe didn’t tolerate any dissent. He also did not allow any drugs under his bridge. Only alcohol and cigarettes. No drugs and no violence.

He also did not allow any drugs under his bridge. Only alcohol and cigarettes. No drugs and no violence.

“I tried crack once. I went nuts...ran out on the streets with my baseball bat all paranoid and wanting to just hit something. I had to drink a lot to come down from that. Never did that again.” The power that Joe earned and then exhibited came from years of training. At home. From his father. “Dad was very successful. We lived well. But he was never there. Traveled every week from Monday to Friday, leaving us six boys and a girl for Mama to take care of. While he was traveling, he was running around on Mama, so she started drinking. If everything wasn’t just perfect when he got home on Friday, he’d beat the hell out of all of us, starting with Mama. She’d be drinking all week, so nothing was right when he got home, and he made sure we knew about it. It was a big relief for everyone when he left every Monday morning.” Joe D’Anna (pronounced DE-Anna) left home at age 17 and became a truck driver, for the most part, and also worked in construction to support his two sons from two of his three ex-wives. The only example of a Dad he ever had was the man who beat him, his mother, and his brothers every week, and beat Joe all the more because Joe refused to ever cry. His dad’s only goal was to make him cry. Joe never cried. That toughness got Joe the position that has no title, other than “the person to whom the bridge in the 2800 block of Buford Highway belongs”, and enabled him to witness the deaths of no fewer than ten people, including his nephew who overdosed on drugs.

His dad’s only goal was to make him cry. Joe never cried.

That nephew was the son of Joe’s brother, the only brother that Joe has spoken to in more than 20 years. Joe went to stay with his brother for a few weeks back in 2012, but it didn’t last long. “He’s very difficult to get along with,” Joe told me. Joe’s brother is an alcoholic. That instance in 2012 was one among a string of events that ultimately led to Joe’s unceremonious removal as the owner of the bridge in the 2800 block of Buford Highway, just north of Lenox Road. That string of events had started when someone tried to take Joe out by setting him on fire. Joe had given shelter to a friend, and he saved that friend's life that night as well. Unfortunately, Joe lost all his earthly possessions in that fire.

Looking back, Joe recalled, “I was tough. When I was 4 or 5, I got run over by a car and dragged halfway down the street while holding on to the underside of the car.” Joe’s childhood had, unfortunately, prepared him well for his adulthood.

“I had to get a new ID, new clothes, blankets, everything.” But that was the least of Joe’s worries after the fire. He had been badly burned on his leg and upper right arm. The EMTs who responded to the fire took Joe to Northside Hospital, where he was given some cream for his burns and put back out on the street. After managing to get back to his bridge by bus, he couldn’t stand up on his own, so bad were his injuries, and infection was already beginning to set in. While owning the bridge in the 2800 block of Buford Highway, just north of Lenox Road, Joe had become friends with a Police Officer named Jeremy Turner. Officer Turner realized quickly that Joe wasn’t going to be able to make it very long without proper treatment for his burns, so he took Joe to Grady Hospital. Grady is renown for its burn unit, and Joe still raves at the treatment he received. “All you can see is this little bitty scar where they sewed on the skin graft!”

Officer Turner visited Joe every day for those three weeks to change his bandages.

Officer Turner, who started and still runs Contribute2America, a nonprofit created to help fill the void in current services for Atlanta’s homeless population, put Joe up in a hotel room for 3 weeks, using some of his own money and some contributions from C2A to pay for Joe’s room, food, water, and medical treatment. Officer Turner visited Joe every day for those three weeks to change his bandages. “Police Officers don’t make a whole lot of money, and I couldn’t let him keep paying for that hotel room.” Joe then went out to Loganville to stay with his brother, the brother that is “difficult to get along with,” but that didn’t last very long, and Joe returned to his bridge. A couple from Alpharetta had begun visiting Joe once a week, bringing him food, water, whatever he may need, and generally just being a friend to Joe. When Joe returned to his bridge, Al and Suzanne continued to visit him, while his condition from the burns worsened. The skin grafts had healed well, but the infection remained, and got steadily worse. Still, Al and Suzanne came to see Joe every week, faithfully, until the spring of 2013, when Suzanne could no longer bear the site that Joe had become. “She’d just look at me and cry. Finally, just Al would come visit each week. I had given up. I had fluid draining out of my ears and nose from the infection. I was sick as I could be. I didn’t care. I just wanted to die. I gave up.” But Al did had not given up on Joe. Al prodded, cajoled, pleaded, and finally begged Joe to get help. When Al explained to Joe how upsetting it was for Suzanne to see Joe this way after they had been visiting him under that bridge every Saturday for three years, that pushed Joe over the edge. He couldn’t fight Al anymore. “But who’s gonna take me in?” Joe pleaded with Al. “I think Emory will,” said Al. Joe got a good laugh at that one as he recalled his earlier treatment at Northside Hospital, but Al was insistent, and he drove Joe to Emory Hospital. They took him in. They treated him. They gave him a private room. They kept him there for 21 days, during which time Joe’s heart stopped beating from the DTs and they had to revive him and then he completely destroyed his room and doesn’t remember one second of it until he woke up fastened to his bed with Al at his side.

“What happened to my room?!?” Joe had asked. Al explained to him that Joe himself had simply gone completely wild and destroyed the room. Joe received every medical attention he required at Emory Hospital for three weeks at no charge. For the first time in many, many years, Joe was sober.

During those 21 days that Joe was at Emory, Al had spoken to Atlanta Mission about Joe. They were not optimistic. Joe smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, and had been drinking more than 5 bottles of liquor each day prior to his stay at Emory, and, despite the care he received at Emory, he still had a long way to go to heal and get rid of his infection. He was barely alive.

Again, to his and Al’s surprise, Atlanta Mission accepted him into their Personal Development Program (PDP), though nobody would speak to him, and he was later told that they had never let anyone join the program in the condition Joe was in when he arrived. Joe officially checked in to Atlanta Mission on June 5, 2013. A couple of weeks after Joe had received a haircut and shaved his beard, one of the Atlanta Mission staff had to stop and apologize for not talking to Joe, simply because he hadn’t recognized him. Two week’s ago, on June 4, 2015, Joe graduated from Atlanta Mission, and is now an employee there, as well as at his church in downtown Atlanta. “God made it clear that my time under the bridge was over, and it was time to start a new chapter.” Joe has not picked up another cigarette and has not had a drink in more than two years. “I think God allowed me to live like I did so He could heal me like He did, so I would know that it was His doing and nothing that I did. I had given up, but God never gave up on me. God was with me the entire time. I had turned by back on Him.”

I was blessed to see Joe graduate from Atlanta Mission two weeks ago, and even more blessed to spend a few hours getting to know him this past Saturday afternoon. As our time came to a close, I asked Joe the question that had been burning in my mind since I first heard the name “Joe D’Anna”:

"How did you end up living under a bridge?"

To my great surprise and shock, he answered without so much as a blink. “I had inherited some money when my Dad died, and some more when my Mother passed away. I gave it all to my two sons. I had some more money saved up. I gave that to my sons as well. I parked my semi truck in the parking lot near that bridge, bought a 12-pack of beer, went up under the bridge, and quit. Living under the bridge, I got comfortable. It grew on me. I was tough, and I knew I could survive. The beatings my Dad gave me became my example, and I owned that bridge. It was my bridge, and I got to where I liked it. I chose to live under that bridge.” Today, Joe D’Anna answers to “Uncle Joe” when he visits Al and Suzanne and their kids and grandkids. He visits often with his friend, Officer Jeremy Turner. God never gave up on Joe, and neither did Al, Suzanne, or Officer Turner. “Every day for sixteen years, I woke up under a bridge and had to have cigarettes and alcohol first thing in the morning. I looked forward to it. Now I look forward to reading my Bible and helping my brothers who are where I used to be.”

Joe is still very well known under the bridge in the 2800 block of Buford Highway, just north of Lenox Road, 3 1/2 miles from the heart of Buckhead, and he visits his friends there every week or so. “God didn’t give up on me. I’m not giving up on them.” We make choices every day, good and bad. Please share if someone has never given up on you. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1RjdNts

[kevinsandlin]

Pitch Practice June 19, 2015

Thanks to the 17 entrepreneurs who attended and contributed to today's session of Pitch Practice. Here's who pitched today.

Local Marketing Inc. - Small, local businesses suck at local search engine marketing, so Local Marketing Inc can grow these businesses without hiring a marketing department. LMI is a full service agency that helps local SMBs (like doctors, lawyers, restaurants, etc.) get to the first page on local SERP.

Parkent Cycles - every 30 seconds a $400 bike is stolen in the US. They make a 200 lb steel frame to hug your bike, which you unlock with your smartphone. Parkent has recently lined up an investor and its first customer.

ZTE - ridiculously small android-based projector; ZTE is trying to launch and market this product into the U.S. Currently sold exclusively through AT&T.

As always, we had a few poignant learning points today:

The story that you tell in your pitch is not about you. It's about your customer; hence, focus on the problem that your customer has, so they can easily see that you understand their problem. Then they will be more likely to listen to your solution.

If you have a 2-sided target audience, like a nonprofit who targets donors to fund services to recipients, you must know which of these audiences you are pitching, and adjust your pitch accordingly.

Thanks again to everyone who attended. We're back again next Friday, June 26th, at 1pm after Startup Chowdown at Atlanta Tech Village.

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[kevinsandlin]

Why to Tell Your Story

I've written recently about telling your story and how to keep telling your story ad how some stories write themselves, but haven't really delved into some deeper reasons to tell your story, so here's the "why" of telling your story, both your personal story and the story of your business. I spent the day today on the road with my family going to and from a funeral in Murfreesboro, TN. I have two teenagers, so part of the chatter on the way up was about why exactly we were driving 3 1/2 hours each way to go to the funeral of a lady we never met. It was an excellent teaching time, mainly to get through to a couple of teenagers that it's not about them, but also that it was about our friend who's mother passed away after 88 wonderful years of life. It was a wonderful home-going celebration of this lady's life, and the theme that ran throughout all the words shared about this lady was "stories." Sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and friends all spoke of the stories this lady would share about life, love, friends, family, history. Everyone who knew this lady knew everything about her life...

Because she constantly told her story, both in writing and verbally.

What's this mean to you and me? Here's 4 simple thoughts to answer that question, and I hope drive you a little closer to sharing your story.

All it takes is one generation who doesn't know your story for your entire story to simply vanish forever. If you don't regale your new employees with the genesis of your business, how will they ever know, understand, and live out the culture that you created?

How will they know how it all started? It's said very often that you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been or where you came from. Or that you should always remember where you came from. But what if you don't know where you came from? What if those who came before you never shared those stories? Who have you received advice from? I'll bet you next month's coffee bill that they gave you advice in the form of war stories from their own hard knocks.

Who else knows your story? Very few people know your own story as well as or better than you do, so who better to share your story than you? If you don't share it, who will? We're not talking NY Times bestselling autobiographies here, but rather simply how you got where you are today and why you chose that path, or that path chose you.

How do you entrench your team in the culture if you don't tell them the stories behind each and every part of the culture and why that particular word or phrase is used? How will they know?

You have to tell them. Everyone loves a story, and everyone has a story. Your story matters. Tell your story, or it might just vanish. That reason alone is a huge part of why we've engaged in telling the stories of the people who have walked the halls at Atlanta Mission. Their stories are rarely told, because many times their stories are not pretty and don't always end in "happily ever after", but those are the stories that make us understand how important our own stories are to the people right next to us. I'll let you decide whether these points are more appropriate for your family tree or for your business, but it's likely that the two are very intertwined.

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[kevinsandlin]

The Seven Things You Must Do to Win at SEO

This post originally appeared on the General Assembly blog.

Most non-developers are completely ignorant of, if not intimidated by SEO. Even some software developers won’t go near it. SEO has been called “black magic,” “dark art”and “pseudoscience,” most likely because if you happen to get it right, you win all the Googles! And everybody wants to win at being on the first page of the Google search engine results page (SERP).

Well, when you’re done reading this post, you won’t be quite as frightened at the mention of “SEO” as you used to be, and you might even have the confidence to say, “I can do this!” because you actually can. Here are the seven things you have to do to win at SEO and get your website to the first page of the Google search engine results page.

1. Get an exact match domain name.

You might want to quit right here! But don’t. Google absolutely looks at your domain name in its ranking algorithm. If your domain name is di4jel7.net, Google has no idea what you do, nor how to rank you for any search for what you actually might do. Even if your tagline is perfectly descriptive, your domain name will count. I chose AtlantaTechBlogs.com because (a) it was available and (b) it describes exactly what we’re all about.

Admittedly, it’s a bit long when you consider Buffer has declared the optimal length of a domain name to be 8 characters plus “.com” (also a ranking factor), but Google looks less at the length than the substance of your domain name. Note: The opposite is also true that if you get an exact match domain name like “googleseoguide.com” and it has nothing to do with SEO, Google will ding you pretty hard.

2. Use Google Webmaster Tools.

Google created tools to help you use Google. Yes, it’s like Cosmo Kramer being at the intersection of 1st and 1st, the nexus of the universe, but Google wants to index your content, so they show you how. GWT is very easy and gives you fantastic information about your site and how Google sees your site. You must use GWT for your website.

3. Give Google a sitemap.

If you use Wordpress or any other content management service (CMS) software, there will be an option to produce a sitemap (usually sitemap.xml) just for Google. Do this, and submit it to Google from within Google Webmaster Tools. It’s very, very easy, and doing so is like inviting Google into your home (your website) and giving them the floor plans, blueprints, and furniture arrangements. That’s what Google likes.

4. Make sure you’re mobile friendly.

You’ve heard the term “mobilegeddon,” and once again, it’s Google stating that they will put a lot of weight on whether or not your website is mobile friendly. Fortunately, Google also provides a very simple tool to tell you in very short order if your site is mobile friendly or not. Go here, and use this tool. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you should fix that immediately.

5. Use HTTPS / SSL certificate.

Google has also recently announced that secure web browsing will be a high priority in its search engine rankings. Google has stated very clearly that this ranking signal will start slow and pick up speed as they do more and more research into web security. If your website is anything other than a blog, you should get an SSL certificate and implement https, period.

6. Create new content every day.

The highest ranking signal in Google’s algorithm is “quality content,” and there simply is no substitute. What does that content look like? The clearest type of content is your blog, but there’s also video, audio, images, and user-created content like forums, comments on blog posts, and curated content (via RSS or social widgets). Content is king with Google, and there’s no end to the types of content you can create, curate, and publish. But remember the other word that goes along with content, quality. Google knows high-quality content from junk, and they will rank accordingly.

7. Be patient.

You got this far, so don't give up! The hardest part of ranking high in SEO is the time it takes for your website’s reputation within the Google algorithm to catch up to your amazing expectations (and hard work!). It took AtlantaTechBlogs.com more than 7 months to reach the first page when you search for “tech blogs,” but now it’s there. In the grand scheme of things, seven months is not very long to wait work. And, you won’t be waiting because you’ll be creating fantastic new content every day and the time will pass very quickly.

Also, SearchEngineLand.com has a great illustration of their interpretation of Google’s ranking algorithm that they put into a form that we all remember from high school chemistry: the periodic table. It’s actually a great way to see just exactly how much weight is put on content.

Learn more about SEO and other key topics in digital marketing.

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[kevinsandlin]

Three Digital Bootcamps This Saturday at General Assembly

I'll be leading the second coming of the Digital Marketing Bootcamp this Saturday at General Assembly at Ponce City Market, while Vince Baskerville, head of UX at CallRail leads the UX Bootcamp and Chidi Afulezi, Co-Founder at aKoma, leads the Product Management Bootcamp. The Product Management class is 10-12 noon, while the DGM and UX bootcamps start at 10am and last until 4pm, and include a great lunch. The folks at GA always take care of their students (and instructors!). Here's a few learning points that you'll get in the DGM Bootcamp.

Everything starts with your brand. Digital marketing is still marketing, and the first place you start in marketing is your brand. Where do you start with a new brand? How do you re-start your brand if you're going to re-start marketing? We'll dig deep into those types of questions.

What does success look like? In order to know if you won, you have to keep score, and we do that by measuring everything, because if you don't measure it, you cannot manage it. More importantly, you can't change the result if you don't know the result.

The purpose of marketing is to reach as many of the right people as possible, and bring the highest percentage of them down through your marketing funnel to make them customers, and preferrably repeat customers. How do you do that? That's the magic of the marketing funnel.

In real estate, everything is about location, location, location. In digital, it's all about content, content, content. We can make it, buy it, or earn it. Or we can do all three. How much budget do you have?

Nothing hurts like a date, so we'll get you started using your very own marketing calendar. Your marketing calendar will be your best friend and your most hated enemy, because nothing hurts like a date.

Are you ready? Join us this Saturday for a full day of fantastic fun and learning. We will laugh, learn, and love digital marketing. I look forward to leading this great class, and thanks to the folks at GA for the opportunity. Will you join me? reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1ffHsb1

[kevinsandlin]

"These stories write themselves"

That's what I told Rachel Solid, the PR/Communications lead at Atlanta Mission. She said I was nuts, but to me, that's how it feels. These days, I am telling a lot of stories, and doing a lot of interviews. While I enjoy, and have no fear of public speaking, I enjoy listening to others' stories even more. I enjoy hearing - and then telling, of course - the stories behind the startups. Technology is cool and amazing, but the tales behind how the person got where he or she is today is far more intriguing. Here are my favorite points in time from the stories I write:

How you got started down this path - there's always that flash of brilliance or the realization that you were going to start something cool. I like to learn the entire setting of that moment. My latest one occurred over a 2-day period when I got rejected by a startup for a full time gig, and then won a client that enabled me to really be me.

When you realized this was the path - meaning when you figured out exactly what it was you were going to do. I remember when we made the decision to push forward with a vendor neutral Wi-Fi certification program, and dump the other 4 lines of business we were propping up. It was such a freeing feeling.

That inflection point of no return - when were you "all in"? Or when did you realize that the path you were on was not going to be reversible?

I chose these points in time, because they are common to most every story, including the next story that I'll be sharing from Atlanta Mission. I spent a couple of hours this past Saturday with a 63-year old man whose story could be told a thousand different ways. On Wednesday, I'll tell it as I heard it this past Saturday. As I told an associate this morning, "I hope I can do it justice with written words." I'll have a few pictures, but I still feel as though the story is writing itself, and I'm just along for the ride. Stay tuned for the next untold story from Atlanta Mission, with more fruit of their labor towards ending homelessness. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1MH0npJ

[kevinsandlin]

Dear Google, please just buy Twitter already

I'm not very good at predicting massive tech acquisitions, seeing how Apple has not (yet) acquired Tesla, though I still think they should. It's Elon Musk's destiny to succeed Steve Jobs as the leader of the cool tech world, right? It's fun to think about playing chess with Silicon Valley's pieces, and it's fun to think about what would happen in this situation, too. Ev Williams moves on to Medium, Instagram surpasses Twitter for MAUs, Dick Costolo is fired, and lots of people start questioning Twitter's very existence. Some guy at Harvard even suggested that Twitter is "the Blackberry of social media." Ouch. That's gotta hurt. All of a sudden, it's like the dot com bust all over again, and people actually want these online businesses to, you know, make money or something. What the...?? Seriously, Twitter has never made a profit, despite 302 million monthly active users, and a very simple to use advertising platform (far easier to use than Google AdWords, IMO). However, Google and Twitter recently re-engaged so that every tweet now goes directly out of Twitter and into Google's search engine. In case that doesn't make sense to you, search up your favorite Twitter hashtag on Google, like this one, and see what you get. You get the best results from Twitter. Very powerful to know that when you tweet, that content (yes, social media is content marketing) is now fuel for your SEO battle. And when we search on Twitter, are we not searching people, things, images, events...using words? Sound familiar? It should. That's how we search on Google, isn't it? So let's end the drama now, Google. Use some of your $60B+ in cash and short term investments to acquire Twitter, whose $24B market cap is relatively low for such a high profile company with 300 million monthly active users. You already have your engines hooked directly up to the Twitter fire hose of tweet data, so you know what the guts look like. Then you can turn this thing you called "Google+" into something real. Google Photos is very nice, though we don't yet know what "Google Streams" is or will be. Just buy Twitter, and make that into Google Streams, lest ye produce another Google+ thing. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1QYOJYr

[kevinsandlin]

The first step of social media marketing

We had a fun class today at General Assembly for "Advanced Social Media Strategies," and we'll be holding this class again on Tuesday, June 30, from 1-4PM. One question that came up several times, because several of the attendees were in a similar position, was this: When you're just getting started with a new business, and you know you're going to be using social media, what's the first thing you do? Where do you start?

The context of this question is important, because if someone is starting from a blank slate, then the first place is with their core values and brand. But in today's question, those pieces were already done, so the marketers were interested in determining their first step with social media. The way I answered the question fits in well with the positioning of this particular class. The first step, assuming you have your core values and brand well buttoned up, is to create a content strategy. In other words:

What kind of content will you create? When you know your audience, you know what kinds of content will resonate with them. Produce this kind of content.

What channels will you use to publish and share? If you're creating video, you used to just go straight to Youtube, but Facebook now has more daily uploads and views of video than Youtube. If your content is written, what blog platform will you use? 

How often will you share it? There are best practices for how often you should share the same piece of content, whether it's video, images, or text.

How will you define success? You have to set goals for social media. Too many times, people just jump on Twitter or Linkedin for their businesses or setup a Facebook page without any way to determine if their efforts are yielding any results at all.

Then create some content, with a solid understanding of where and how your target audience consumes content. Once you have content, then you share it using best practices for social media.

We take this approach because social media marketing should be viewed as a subset of content marketing. Every word, image, video, graphic, photo, etc., is your content, whether you publish it on a blog or a long Instagram post. All your content should reflect your brand.

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[kevinsandlin]

Pitch Practice June 12, 2015

After Jim-n-Nick's BBQ, we had 18 people today at Pitch Practice. Today's learning point focused on the old adage "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." That's a lie. If you put salt in his oats, he'll be dying for some water. Your 30 second elevator pitch is the salt. Make your audience thirsty by telling a story that personalizes the problem you are solving. Here's who practiced their pitches today.

We Get Around Atlanta - Walk around 3D tour of $1M+ homes, because every residential real estate agent's marketing plan is exactly the same.

Synapse Software - flight delays are caused by the airlines' crappy maintenance software. Synapse is building new SaaS to replace antiquated unix mainframe maintenance software.

OddJobTemp.com - home repairs are tough for folks who are not handy, so we go to YouTube for how to fix a leak or something. Odd Job Temp is Uber for home repairs.

MSV Wellness - massage therapy delivered to your home on short notice at favorable rates.

Thanks to everyone who attended today's session. I look forward to it again next week, 1pm, Atlanta Tech Village, right after Startup Chowdown. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1FPAOPa

[kevinsandlin]

When your startup product offers multiple benefits, pick just one

Many times a tech startup builds a unique product that solves some really big problems and offers a lot of benefits to its potential customer. However, just as in these two previous posts about being able to articulate the problem you're solving and starting every message with that articulation of the problem, when your solution offers many benefits, pick one. Here's why.

When you bring a list of benefits as long as your arm, your pitch, presentation, or message really starts to sound a lot like propaganda.

If you really are solving a big, hairy, nasty problem, your audience will already know the benefits.

When you tout benefit after benefit after benefit, the fact that you're solving a huge problem can easily get lost.

You're solving a problem, and the result of solving that problem is the number 1 benefit you can offer. Everything else is window dressing.

Next time you have the opportunity to deliver your message, your pitch, your value proposition, first start with the problem (e.g., wasting huge amounts of energy), and then explain the one single biggest benefit of solving that problem (e.g., saving millions of dollars in energy costs). Later on, when you are actively marketing to a broader audience, listing out several benefits will enable your message to resonate with a larger market of potential customers, but early on, when you're still learning about your market, pick one. Image courtesy of Beverly Avril via LinkedIn reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1JI8O6g

[kevinsandlin]

Who should we help?

Originally published on Atlanta Tech Blogs

Atlanta Tech Blogs was never intended to be a business.

It was a side project, a way to stay in the game, a tool, a digital publication that might be helpful to a few people, including me. But then it got me a couple of paying clients. Then a few more. It has turned into a business. Along the way, as I began to flex my content marketing muscle (a muscle I did not know I actually had), I started to realize that I really enjoyed telling the stories of local startups. I also came to the conclusion that every startup has a unique and compelling story, even if that startup never actually becomes a real repeatable profitable business. Unfortunately, most founders and early execs don't have the time, bandwidth, resources, knowledge, ability, or desire to tell the story of their startup consistently and repetitively. But I do. And I enjoy doing it. And my clients, while still startups, have enough traction and budget to pay a fair price to create the content that drives their inbound marketing efforts. Atlanta Tech Blogs has become a content creation, content marketing, and content strategy business.

Is there more to it?

During this time of transitioning from project to business, I got a Twitter DM from Brett Hagler, one of the founders of New Story, the Atlanta startup now backed by YCombinator. He was as giddy as a school girl as he told me that fantastic news. That conversation left me elated for Brett and his team and the future of New Story. It also left me wondering what I can do with my gifts and talents that could help those who need help. But that's kind of broad: help those who need help. Doesn't really meet any criteria or provide for any sort of focus. But I kept that conversation going in my mind, reminding myself of New Story, and then Tom's Shoes came to mind. You buy a pair of shoes, and a really poor kid gets a free pair of shoes. Brilliant. Giving is built into the business model. Now they've expanded way beyond giving shoes, proving that their model works.

Who needs this kind of help?

I didn't see how such a model would apply to Atlanta Tech Blogs. Clarity came when I realized Tom's was giving away the core product that it creates: shoes. OK, so what's my core product? Content. Telling your story, day by day, as it unfolds. But how can I give that away? Isn't that just called "blogging"? OK, more thought: whose story needs to be told? Who is not able to tell their story? Well, there's startups. But they can tell their own stories, or at least they should. Most just choose not to, despite Mark Suster's consistent advice to startups. No, there's another group that needs to tell its stories, but struggles to get the work done that they are called to do every day: nonprofits.

Who, and what, but how?

Knowing what I can do and for whom I can do it is a good start, but what would that look like? I reached out to Jeff Hilimire, who runs Advice for Good, and told him I needed some of that Advice for Good and shared my initial idea of writing one blog post for a nonprofit for every client blog post we write. Instead, Jeff suggested picking one nonprofit that fit with my core values, and blogging for them pro bono. I dug around my network, and learned that two friends who go to my church are on the board of a very well established nonprofit here in Atlanta. It turns out I used to do some volunteer work for them a few years back, so I was already familiar with their work. I reached out to one of those friends, Mark Newton, who runs irunurun in Atlanta Tech Village, and he quickly introduced me to Jim Reese, the CEO of Atlanta Mission. Mark, Jim, and I met at ATV a few days later. Unbeknownst to me, Mark had not told Jim anything about what I had in mind. "I wanted him to hear it from you," Mark later told me. So Jim was coming in blind, with no idea what I was all about or what I wanted to do.

A Good Match

I gave Jim a quick backgrounder on who I am and what I've done, and then told him about Atlanta Tech Blogs becoming a content marketing firm, and what I wanted to do: "I want to tell the stories behind Atlanta Mission." Jim wept. I'm not kidding. He cried. He explained his emotion: "I've been struggling to figure out how we can tell the hundreds of stories of lives being saved, having friends...having hope again." It was a very good start.

What It Means

For every employee at Atlanta Tech Blogs, we will adopt one nonprofit and tell that organization's stories, once a week, for as long as it takes. Our goal is to thoroughly make known that nonprofit's mission, team, goals, needs, and amazing stories of lives saved.

To this end, you'll notice a few minor changes that we've made to the Atlanta Tech Blogs web site recently. One of those changes is what looks like a Google banner ad below the new menu bar. That's not an ad. Well, actually it is an ad, but it's not a Google ad. It's the poster for each week's Atlanta Mission story. Each week, that story will be refreshed, as we tell the tales of lives saved, lives changed, people going from being called "homeless" to being called "friend" and "brother." We'll dig deep into the staff, donors, leadership, and volunteers that make Atlanta Mission tick, because they've seen the stories of lives changed...and lives lost. Right now, I'm a one-man show. It's just me, so that "for every employee" mantra has just a small meaning today. But we get new clients every week, and, at some point in the near future, I won't be able to handle the volume of work, so I'll bring on an employee. That employee will adopt a nonprofit, and we will tell their stories. These nonprofits are the ones whose stories need to be told, and we can and will help them do just that.

You Can Help, Too

I'll make it really easy. Just share these stories from Atlanta Mission with your social networks.  That's it. A click of the mouse, and you'll be spreading the word about how Atlanta Mission is ending homelessness. You can start by sharing this first of many stories to come. This new direction for Atlanta Tech Blogs is going to be a great adventure, and I hope you'll come along for the ride. reposted from Blogger http://ift.tt/1B6nXew