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Zappos “Delivering Happiness” Tour Hits Austin

Conferences, Social Media Advisors

So, I don’t normally get up early on Saturdays. In fact, I don’t typically get up that early any of the other days, either, if I’m being honest.  I’m not really a morning person, I suppose.  This is one of the benefits of homeschooling and being self-employed.

Today was an exception for me.

I was invited to attend a talk/event that made it worth getting up before the sun today. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. was speaking as part of the “Delivering Happiness” bus tour across the country.  It was organized by the Austin chapter of the American Marketing Association, and my friend Angela Brutsche invited me to come check it out.  Big thanks to her for this!

After watching the Zappos crew’s introductory video “Happy Wrap” (which was actually a pretty catchy rap with an interesting hook that reminded me of the 80’s band Book of Love), it was clear that this was to be no ordinary networking event.  We were given nametags and instructed to list “something weird that makes you happy”.  I originally chose the scent of freshly cut grass, then I was informed that everyone enjoys that (i.e. not weird enough), so I changed mine to “seeing older couples kiss”.  Whenever I see that, it gives me hope, and warms my heart.  I saw my grandparents do this after being together for 64 years, and it made an impact on me.

But I digress….

After a brief introductory speech from Zappos’ chief happiness officer (Jenn), Tony took the stage.  Well, there wasn’t really a stage, since it was at an Italian restaurant meeting room, but you get the picture.

I’ve seen a lot of business leaders speak, and I’ve learned something from all of them, but I rarely come away feeling inspired.  One notable exception would be when I saw Gary Vaynerchuk in March.  Today, I can add Tony Hsieh to this list.  After listening to Tony discuss the evolution of their corporate culture, how they hire (and avoid hiring the wrong people), and the science of happiness, I felt excited to be able to implement some of the ideas I came up with for my own businesses.

The Zappos commitment to stellar customer service is well-documented and as solid as it gets, but it was great to hear some additional stories today from Tony.  For example, if you’re headed to Vegas and you want to tour Zappos, just let them know ahead of time.  They’ll pick you up at the airport, take you for a tour, and drop you off at your hotel ( this service is available Monday through Thursday).  He also mentioned that they recently set a new record for longest Zappos phone call, clocking in at 8 hours and 3 minutes.  He also mentioned that they field-tested one of their phone reps by having a friend who wanted pepperoni pizza call Zappos at 3am to see how they could help.  Not surprisingly, the problem was solved.  Clearly, they really just want to make people happy, and that has been the essence of their success to this point.

I picked up a copy of Tony’s new book while I was at the event as well.  I’ll probably post a review after I have a chance to finish it.

I would, however, encourage you to check out the bus tour site to see if they’re making a stop in your city.  If they’ve already been through your area, maybe you can catch them next time around, if they decide to do a 2011 tour.  🙂

If you want to learn more about what makes this terrific company tick, watch this:

Lastly, if you’d like an online resource that can help you to shape your company and its culture to be more like Zappos, visit http://zapposinsights.com.

Being a Big Deal Isn’t a Big Deal- Lessons from @unmarketing

Conferences, Social Media Advisors

I just returned yesterday from a fun trip to Charlotte for a conference.  This trip wasn’t a speaking engagement for me, but just a fun time to socialize and network with friends.  Whenever I go away for a few days on a business trip, coming home can be quite a chaotic thing.  No matter how hard I try, the voicemail, email, Facebook messages, & tweets are always backed up.  In fact, I updated my status this morning on Facebook & Twitter to say, “Today’s To-Do list is longer than the line at the DMV.” So I hastily made breakfast for the family and headed to the office to get started on the long day of catch-up. I barely took time to wish my new boy happy 5 weeks old as I ran into the office.

When I logged into Facebook I was greeted by a video from Jason.  I saw it was a video of Scott Stratten of unmarketing.  Since I have seen many of his speeches over the past few weeks that have been amazing, I couldn’t help but to click and watch right off the bat.  I figured he was going to share some more awesomeness on successful uses of social media, so I clicked on the video and began to watch.  I realized after about 60 seconds of watching the video, this was a different type of presentation.  One though that may have more impact on me than any other presentation I have seen of his.

I could sit here and write for the next three days on the thoughts that I feel from his presentation.  But instead, I think it is more appropriate to just share the video and allow you to make your own conclusions.


So thank you Scott for putting things back into perspective as to the important things in life that matter. Remember to take time to not only make a difference to those online, but also to your family and friends.

Benefits of Social Media are the Real Life Relationships

Conferences, How to Use Twitter, Social Media Advisors

I was in Florida recently for a Real Estate Barcamp and while there I got to meet many old and new friends.  I don’t necessarily go to these events excited to learn new things.  When I do learn about new products, techniques and such that is a great by-product.  The reason I travel to the events is to grow the relationships with my social media sphere of friends that I have either met before in person or maybe have not yet met.

In Florida, one of the great people I got to meet for the first time was my friend Chris Griffith, aka @twitterzilla.  I have known her for a while and have followed along her blog for what seems like an eternity.  She was one of the first people I read when I was just starting to understand social media and at the time learning how to use it for real estate.  She was always one who was a straight shooter and would just tell it to you plain & simple.  But also had a heart of gold that would help however she could.  Well, yesterday I received an envelope in the mail.  You can see below the rest in this video:


So if you think that social media is just for fun and cannot benefit your business or life, then it may be time to reconsider!

Real Estate Barcamp Charlotte 2010- A great day of learning #REBCCLT

Conferences, Social Media Advisors

Yesterday I attended Real Estate Barcamp Charlotte aka #REBCCLT. This year the event was held in Ballantyne Village which was a great venue.  If you want to see what it is like just check out this quick video of #REBCCLT as people were checking in.  There were four classrooms available for some wonderful times of learning.  People from inside the real estate industry as well as several from outside gathered for this amazing event.

The highlights of #REBCCLT:

Here are just some of the things from REbarcamp Charlotte that I really enjoyed.  First, I liked the fact that they had some great snacks of muffins etc for us to snack on for breakfast.  They also had beverages there for us to grab throughout the day.  Sometimes these events are so rush rush in the morning that there isn’t any type of food.  When this happens you get to around 10:30 and everyone is no longer thinking of learning, but instead thinking of what they can get for lunch.  In fact, I have seen a few sneak out of sessions early just because they cannot make it any longer which is sad because they miss out on so much good content that they could learn for free.

I also liked the way that REbarcamp Charlotte gave the group the ability to pitch ideas to cover for the day to the entire group.  The reason this was so cool is that you were then able to find out exactly what those in attendance wanted to learn about.  Several didn’t want to lead sessions but really wanted to learn, “How to do this, or what is…” so they were able to pitch the ideas & then the event found someone to lead the discussion.  After all the ideas were pitched, then everyone there was able to go & vote and the classes with most demand were what was covered throughout the conference. This is what I would defintely call empowering the attendees with the way the conference runs.  The one thing that I wish would have happened with the pitching aspect is that we could have done it a little bit faster.  It seemed like we spent a lot of time on people voting that we could have almost added another round of sessions instead.  Maybe next time just pitch the ideas & then do a show of hands type voting to speed things up.

The venue had 4 separate classrooms which were held on two different levels.  The Superior School of Real Estate which was the main sponsor of the event opened their doors and allowed the use of their awesome space for two of the sessions.  As usual though, the best part of a REbarcamp isn’t so much the great sessions, but the small impromptu breakouts that happened all over the facility.  In a true unconference style, I even did a small class on the fly for a few that were begging me to help them blog better.  So, the 5 of us found a few comfy chairs, brought our laptops and we did the session right there.  Throughout the day I saw many small groups scattered all over learning on a specific thing to help their business succeed online.

So, try & make it out to a Barcamp if there is one in your area.  They can be loads of fun as extremely informative.  Every time I leave I leave learning several new things that will help take my business to the next level.  My ultimate suggestion though is this: come with an open mind ready to learn, participate, and make new friends.  If you do, you will definitely leave the event a changed person with tons of ideas on how to use different types of technology to increase your business. The best part of all is that these events are totally free to attend!

Lastly, I loved that the people attending #REBCCLT were definitely tweeting heavily.  When I finally stopped tracking the number of tweets, there were over 350 tweets made by 77 people in about a 12 hour period!  In case you were wondering who all these people were, I put them all into a list so that you can follow everyone instantly.  To follow all that tweeted with the hashtag click here for the list of people who tweeted about #rebcclt. All you will need to do is enter your twitter id & it will connect you with everyone else.

Finally, I will leave you with a few photos from the event.  Check it out & enjoy!

A giant thank you to Lori, Sandy, Debe, Todd, Chad, Susan, and everyone else who helped make this an awesome event!

The wordle above is courtesy of Jeff Turner, aka @respres