If the rate of change outside your business, is greater than the rate of change inside your business, you’re out of business.

I was in Austin, TX this week at an EO Member’s company.  At lunch we went for a drive and they showed me a HOT trend in Austin.  Food Trailers.  And these are not your dad’s hot dog stands either.

Some of the hottest, trendiest restaurants & chefs in Austin are setting up remote restaurants in food trailers.  This is upscale fast food.  Upscale food trailers.

Think NO overhead. LOW cost. CLOSE to your customers.  And great expansion strategy that’s way out of the box.

How is your industry changing ?  I’d love to hear…

Imagine if your customers got as excited about your products or services as
this guy on magic mushrooms does about a simple rainbow.

What are you doing to get your clients to RAVE about you ?

What’s your personal brand?

Three years ago when I wrote my Painted Picture it was a mix of Brooks Brothers confidence & J. Crew casual.  Ummm that’s kind of changing.

When I did speaking events I’d always be wearing a Brooks Brothers button down shirt.  Ya, I’ll still wear them once in a while.

However, I’ve recently discovered Robert Graham Designs – and his shirts are REALLY working for me.  I expect that I’ll be wearing these more and more going forward during my speaking events too.   They feel like the real authentic me too.  I sure know that I’ll be wearing them out & about a lot.

There is certainly a buzz about Robert Graham shirts building but I’d like to think I was pretty early at finding out about them.  Certainly early at shouting about them.

Who do you wear that makes you feel like you ?  What clothes will you rave about ?

Parketing, which is parking branded vehicles at high traffic locations has been around forever yet many companies still don’t leverage its power.

My dad used to have his company logos and lists of the products he sold on our family car! It served as a rolling billboard, and he parked it strategically: no matter where we went, he found the spot that would garner the most views from passing pedestrians and other drivers.

Later, with College Pro Painters, many of us painted our old, used vehicles in a bright yellow color with our huge red and white company logos.  These “big bird” vans, as they were called, attracted attention and got us clients.  Some franchisees even “bartered” with gas stations: in exchange for parking their vans at the stations overnight, College Pro Painters would buy gas from the proprietor all summer long. The arrangement benefitted all those involved, and put College Pro Painters front and center at all times of the day.

To this day 1-800-GOT-JUNK? branded trucks and wrapped cars are a huge percentage of how people first heard about the company.  And even if you have to park your vehicle in a questionable area, potential repair costs due to vandalism are far outweighed by the free marketing exposure you’ll get.

Last time I checked, your prospects aren’t walking around your parking lot.  They are driving down the streets in the areas near their homes and offices.  Where are your company cars & trucks parking tonight?

People won’t think to use your product or service if they don’t know your brand.

Since you have to wear clothes, why not put them to work marketing your product or service? It’s an easy win for your company, and in some instances, such as networking events and conferences corporate clothing will help you stand out in a sea of suits.

Every time I wear branded clothing, someone comments and asks me about my company.

Even as far back as College Pro Painters, our painters wore shirts emblazoned with our logo, so that while they were up on ladders people would see our brand. This also proves helpful when recruiting for new employees: one summer I had my painters wear their painting shirts with huge logos to the university pub.  I bribed them with free beer to do it, and needless to say, it helped me find new painters every time.

While building 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, I would place my branded jacket on the outside of chairs so it would be seen while I was sitting down. On planes, I’d fold it in such a way that the logo stood out even when placed in overhead bins. I was relentlessly getting my name out to prospects.  I even made license plates with my company name on it for two companies I built.  At conferences of sometimes 2,000 people there were four of us in 1-800-GOT-JUNK? fleeces with huge logos on our backs. People thought there were at least 20 of us walking around because they saw our logos so often in the middle of all the suits.

Ashton Kutcher A+ Video List

If you doubt the power of Twitter, here is one example of how it has helped me this year.

I wanted people to know about & share my TEDx Video with all their friends. Here is the link.

So I decided to send that link to everyone I’m connected to on Twitter.  I also sent the link to some of the Top business people on Twitter like @tferriss I also tried sending it to Oprah – she hasn’t sent it out yet – she will

Two weeks ago I noticed a tweet from Ashton Kutcher asking for recommendations of Videos to add to his A+ Top 10 Videos of the Week to Watch.  I sent him my TEDx talk.  And yes.  He added it to his list.

You’re right.  Twitter is a waste of time.  For MOST people and companies. It’s a waste of time because they haven’t figured out how to use it.

However, when you spend two years building relationships with & helping people on Twitter.  Others on Twitter begin to help you.

Thanks Ashton @aplusk on Twitter.  23,000 people have now watched this video in its first 2 weeks live.  I want people to see Entrepreneurs differently.  And help kids aspire to be entrepreneurs.  Your video mention helped.

Many have already heard that five awesome companies paid to have advertising on my MacBook Pro for 2010.  They are already getting great exposure too.

Upon finding that the 5 ad spots were already taken before he could grab one EO member John Ruhlin offered to advertise on the back of my iPhone.  In exchange for the one year placement John traded me $2,500 worth of awesome, high end, personally engraved Cutco Chefs knives – a wicked set.

These knives are one of the product lines he helps companies use to reward their top clients in unique ways, and also to get into the doors of CEOs they are targeting.

John had me at hello – remember he’s the guy who blew me away two years ago by filling my hotel room with clothes from Brooks Brothers.  Now we’re close enough friends that I was invited to his wedding, and that he knew I loved cooking.  iPhone Ad for a year in exchange for the best chefs knives.  Done…

What are you doing to thank your top clients ?  How are you getting creative with your advertising ?  Let’s hear from you…

I’d love to say that I was chilling out at Whistler and I came up with this brilliant idea to let you promote your blog here, but I cannot take credit.

I learned about this idea from a great friend Gini Dietrich of The Fight Against Destructive Spin.

Turns out she learned about it a couple of weeks ago, from Toronto HAPPO champion, Danny Brown, invited his blog readers to pimp their blogs in the comments of his blog. You should go check it out – An Invite to Pimp Your Blog

So, you can do the same here. Let’s see what kinds of blogs you have and let’s see if we can find you some new readers.

Please include the following:

1. The blog’s name and link

2. A one sentence description about why someone should read your blog.

3. Your full name

4. Your Twitter handle (if you have one)

As an alternative, if you don’t have a blog, give us one blog post you’d like me to write about in the comments.

Go ahead! Promote your blog here…

I just realized how lucky I am. 

Over the past twenty years I’ve worked REALLY hard to build awesome companies, build great teams, and build the trust of entrepreneurs around the world.

I was just getting ready to upload this photo and realized that these six companies are ones I’m humbled to have built the trust of.

Five of these great brands have paid $2,500 each to put their logo on my laptop for 2010.

The companies are: Outsourcing Things Done, Maverick Business Adventures, Grasshopper.com, Media Temple, and Hire Better.  I got so lucky to find such awesome ones.  And in the process I turned down many others (some who just didn’t get in early enough, and others who weren’t just the perfect fit yet).  Anyway – thanks to all of them.

Yes they are paying me – but you all know me – I wouldn’t rave about them if I didn’t love them.  And if anything changed – I’d be the first to give them there money back and take the sticker off too.

I’m lucky to have such great brands supporting me that you’d be smart to check out too.

Lastly, yes there are 6 stickers here.  I gave one free spot away to the non-profit that I support.  I contacted the CEO of Kiva.org and asked him if he’d like to be on my laptop with the other brands.  He loved the idea and said yes.  I then told him I’d give them the spot for free because their mission was so similar to mine.  They are all about helping entrepreneurs grow too.

This year, I’ll be speaking in front of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs.  They’ll all see these six logos.  And trust me, I’ll be raving about them all year too.

Two years ago I was speaking at the 20^th anniversary of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) in Las Vegas. It is not unusual for people to come up after I present to say hello, ask questions, or ask for my contact info. Not a big deal and it usually doesn’t result in much more than a couple second interactions. And ya, this time was different.

A young EO guy I’d never met before named John Ruhlin engaged me in conversation and asked if it was me who was coming to Cleveland to speak at their EO Chapter the following week. He also asked what my plans were the night before. I answered yes that in fact I was going to be coming to his city and that I would more than likely be taking advantage of the dollar being weak and shopping at my favorite store, Brooks Brothers.

We made plans to grab dinner and see a Cavs basketball game after I was done shopping. Someone offering to grab dinner and a sporting event is a nice gesture in business, but not a big deal or out of the ordinary, right??

Well, as it would turn out, coming in that day was a traveler’s nightmare. I had multiple delays and had to beg my way onto a flight that was pulling away from the jet way. I had to text John and let him know that I was coming in 5 hours later than expected and that I understood if he wanted to cancel. He casually reassured me that it was no problem, that he was waiting at the bar in my hotel and that I should get checked in, take my bags upstairs and come down refreshed for a great night. I thought, even though I didn’t get to go shopping I can still enjoy a great meal and take in a little Lebron James. All in all not a bad way to spend an evening in Cleveland. That is what I was expecting…

I got to the hotel and when I went to walk into my room, my jaw dropped. Spread out folded and hanging across my entire room were dozens of suit jackets, pants, shirts, and sweaters…and not just any dress clothes, they were Brooks Brothers dress clothes. My entire room looked like I had walked into a Brooks Brothers retail store. And it was all in my size.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. John, the EO guy had casually asked me what size I wore in an email that week because he said he wanted to send me his company T-shirt.

He’d just pulled off this amazing, mind-altering experience of service (what he calls “strategic appreciation”) and we weren’t even at dinner yet. I took as many pictures on my phone as I could, texted them to my wife, and realized I needed to call John DiJulius to change the example I gave him for his book on the best customer service I had ever experienced.

When I walked into the bar, John looked up with a grin and said, “You enjoyed your Brooks Brothers store?”

Over dinner and the game John explained how using ultra high-end gifts helps him land meetings with CEOs or keep top client relationships amazing.

One of John’s companies, Ruhlin Promotion Group, specialized in doing crazy things like sending a $500 Cutco knife set in 5 consecutive packages to a CEO asking them to “carve out time” for a meeting.

After the Brooks Brothers experience and yes the awesome Cutco knives he sent me engraved with my company BackPocket COO logo, I will meet John Ruhlin anytime, anyplace, and refer him to anybody because I can only hope more and more people get to experience the Ruhlin Promotion Group treatment first hand.