Saying Goodbye

Next Wednesday, April 30th is my last day at Progressive Design Apparel.  I submitted my letter of resignation and have been wrapping up my business.  One of the main things I wanted to do was continue to train our new addition.  I’ve also started saying my goodbyes.  I’ve been with PDA for 10 months and it’s amazing how many people can touch your life in that short period of time.

As a teacher, 10 months would be enough time to make a world of difference.  There’s something special about bringing in kids and watching them grow in front of your eyes.  In 10 months at PDA, I’ve not seen as much personal growth, but I have seen a lot of relationships form, change, and even end.  Ten months is a rather short life cycle, but the beauty of short life cycles is they’re easily observed.  And now I have to say goodbye.

I already sent an email to my biggest client.  She’s just a sweetheart to work with.  I’ll miss the fact that no matter what craziness happens, I could get the job done and make her happy.  She’d probably be embarrassed to know how much I like working with her.  And I’d be embarrassed for her to know, too.  But how often do you get a huge client that’s also your nicest client?

I emailed the one client who seems I can never make happy; also a big client.  I walked in 10 months ago picking up the pieces of someone else’s mistakes and couldn’t ever get on this client’s good side.  I bent over backwards the way none of my colleagues could or would have and still couldn’t make her happy.  Of course, I’ve never let on to her that she’s the only person I can’t please, so I did the respectable thing and sent her an email of my departure.  I was sure to include a line about how much I enjoyed working with her.

Although, it’s not the same as saying goodbye to my kids, it’s still hard to say goodbye.  Where will my clients end up down the road?  Will they be taken care of?  Will I ever again cross paths with them? 

I’ll likely never know the answers to those questions, but right now I’ve got bigger questions on my mind.  Where will I be in a year?  Will I be a success?  Will I be happy?  I’m excited about moving forward and growing, but there’s always that uncertainly before embarking on something new.  But you know what?  No one ever found the next great thing in life by staying in the same place.  I have to get out there and explore the world and discover things for myself.  I have the best support system I need, a great wife and a couple of pups who don’t care what I do as long as it involves petting them.

I haven’t decided what to do with this blog yet.  I’ve been doing it for a couple months now, so I’m starting to get decent traffic.  At the same time, I’m going to be less marketing and more sales in my next position.  So my options are ditch this blog, start a new blog more about me personally, start a new blog more about me professionally (like this one), or drop blogging altogether.  I generally say give the people what they want; problem is, I don’t know what you guys want.  I’ll let you know what I come up with, but if you have any suggestions please let me know. 

Corporate Rock Stars Speak

Quite frequently, people have bad experiences as a customer and reach out to a company looking for help. So many times, as I’m sure you’ve experienced, you’ll end up on the line at a customer service center in Bangladesh with a nice guy named, Phil. Phil will listen to your problem and offer advice in broken English. I actually use the name “Phil” as an inside joke to myself, but I have experience with emailing a “guy” named “Phil” who seems to work 24/7 and always signs his name followed by a “T” and a double digit number. For example, an email will say,

“Your request have been forwarded. Thank you, Phil. T38”

Unfortunately, the “Phil”s of the world aren’t always able to solve problems. This leads to many blogging about their experience or performing an “executive email carpet bomb.” Surprisingly enough, some CEOs and high-level executives are reading blogs. They must have been smart enough to setup a Google Alert with their company’s name.

Even more surprising, some of these higher ups, are even responding to blogs. I had Chris Baggott, from Compendium Blogware, comment here. And I was recently reading a post where Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh commented. Though, I’ve not bought from Zappos (I’ve tried buying footwear online and so far it hasn’t worked out), I have heard from many people that Zappos’ customer service is excellent. (One of my workers’ brothers actually works there—I believe they have a location near Louisville, Kentucky.) So when Tony Hsieh from Zappos or Chris Baggott from Compendium or any big time business person comments on blogs it adds a more personal face to the company.

I read many prominent national bloggers on the Daily Fix and Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist; and for the star-struck bloggers like myself, reading a comment by a CEO is like being in the same room as one. I don’t have any of them giving me advice or meeting me for a drink, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless. While Slash, Willie Mays, or Sean Connery would be awesome to meet, I’d actually rather meet a successful business person like Warren Buffett or the aforementioned CEOs. I’ll never have the talent of Slash, Willie Mays, or Sean Connery, but who knows, I could be a successful business person someday. And if any successful business people have advice, I’d be more than happy to listen to the corporate rock stars speak. I probably just have to be a majority shareholder in their company to get noticed…

Corporate Blogging as Marketing

This afternoon I took part in an hour-long webinar on corporate blogging hosted by Chris Baggott, founder of Compendium Blogware. I’ve actually been enamored with the idea of corporate blogging since the moment I first heard of it. Compendium is based here in Indianapolis and I actually had some contact with Chris between the time that Compendium’s formation had been announced and the time Compendium went live. I would have jumped at the chance to work for him if for no other reason than I think his idea is so innovative, but all impressions that I’ve gotten are that he not only knows what he does, he’s a real good guy.

So Compendium handles the behind-the-scenes of corporate blogging. Blogging is an important way to be found for businesses—especially small businesses. Blogging is just the current (and one of the most effective) marketing trends. If your company wants to start blogging, but wants to only focus on the content and not hiring an IT guy just to run the blog, Compedium is the type of place you’d go. To give you an analogy, if you want pizza you could get all the ingredients and make it by hand or you could call the best pizzeria in town. Either way, you’d be eating good pizza for dinner, it’s just less hassle when you don’t have to make it yourself. (There are a lot of pizza examples here on Marketer Synergy, aren’t there?).

Long story short, keep an eye on Compendium’s website for the next webinar if you’re interested in the new wave of corporate marketing. I’m going to send my boss to the next one he offers, which based on their attendance today, will probably be again in the next month or two.

And with as much respect as I have for Matt Mullenweg, he offers a completely different product, so I don’t feel like they’re competitors at all. If I knew Matt, I’d probably have just as many nice things to say about him. And I do love me some WordPress!