When I was invited by a friend to go to the Bushmills Whiskey party in Boston the first thing I asked was:

“are they going to have anything besides whiskey drinks?”  I’m not a huge fan of whiskey (until last night).  My friend said “no, it’s a whiskey party, what’s wrong with you?”

Since I hadn’t seen this friend in a while, I went.  I assumed it would be another branded event where I’d be handed informational pamphlets, had the sellers bug me about how whiskey is made, why I should buy it, cram in a room with 600 people, blah blah blah.

This wasn’t like that.

1) Bushmills knew who they wanted and they wanted tastemakers so that’s who they invited.  They didn’t need to pack the place to the gills until it was uncomfortable so they could report numbers back to corporate.  It was an event that you could wander around in or even find a seat if you wanted.  wonderful.

2) They recorded and branded content for themselves and their partygoers.  A ton of it.  It was genius.  Since they had all the right tastemakers at their party they launched a small army of photographers into the room to take photos of everyone enjoying their product.  Good lord they probably have a zillion videos and photos of happy, real people enjoying Bushmills.  They also had a cool photo group set up in one corner to take fun photos with your friends and some hipsterish props (think antlers and mustaches).  They had iPads there so you could immediately upload your photos to your Facebook page, Twitter, and whatever other channel you wanted to upload to.  Here’s mine:

Since they were inviting kind of a hip crowd they made sure that the photos, the props, the food, etc. were all in a certain style so that this crowd would want to upload it.  Can you imagine if they had some bright splashy frame around this photo?  Not nearly as many people would have wanted to upload them.

They also printed some of the photos out so that I had hard copies to take home.  The rest I can get off of their Facebook page.

This is genius because in one night they got a non whiskey drinker to:

try their product, have photos taken with it, upload a lightly branded photo to my Facebook page, visit their Facebook page to check out the rest of the photos I was in, and also have hard copy Bushmills branded photos on my refrigerator.  All because I happened to like the style everything was created in.

3) They knew what else their audience would like from an event.  Some of the tastemakers they invited were foodies, so their appetizer offerings ranged from bacon brownies to gourmet baby back rib bites, to cupcakes.  Branded cupcakes of course.  This gave people additional options to capture the event the way that they wanted to.  I saw people all over the place snapping iPhone pictures of the food.

Overall Lesson:

When you want to do some type of event that has branding to it, go all the way.

Think about your audience and the style they will like, not your style.

Create content at events and also, think of ways to help people at your event create their own content.

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee.  ~Carly Simon

Anyone who has been reading this blog for any amount of time or has had the unfortunate experience of being on a trip with me where the only brew available is the gas station variety knows that I love good coffee. I’ve got sort of an embarrassing number of posts about it.

I collect coffee cups and choose the perfect one every morning.  When I moved I had two full and impressively heavy cardboard boxes full of them.  Ok, so you get it, I have a problem.

Anyway, when I met Dave from SafariCup we talked for about an hour about everything from coffee chains to coffee cups to my secret fear that I was becoming a coffee snob.  He asked me if I was doing the ‘pour over’ method every morning and when I said no he told me I had a long way to go before I became a real coffee snob.  phew.

Dave also sent me some coffee to try.  I tasted it and it’s really, really good.  So if you’re the type that needs a new kind of coffee every few weeks while you create strategy or think up awesome ideas, I’m giving some Safari Cup Coffee away.

Tell me in the comments what your favorite coffee mug is and where you got it. I’ll choose a random winner next week.

There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.

~ Indira Ghandi

When it comes to competition, I know a lot of people might say ‘don’t worry about what other people are doing’.  My mom would say that.  My grade school teachers would say that.  I might even be tempted to say that if it weren’t so helpful in strategy building to know exactly what other people are doing.

I had a client recently that came to me very worried about the Facebook pages of its nearest competitors, we’ll say that this client had a diet product.  They wanted to know how each of their competitors were communicating with an audience that wanted to lose weight online so that they could build a better website and Facebook page.  They listed out each weight loss product that sold something similar to them and I took a look at their strategies – none of them were very good.

But knowing your competition isn’t just about knowing who makes the same product or offers the same service as you.  The wonderful world of the internet has made it possible to click from your site to your competitor’s to a shoe site to a site for baby pandas in about 30 seconds.

After I was finished with their strategy the competition landscape had changed completely.  The top groups talking about weight loss weren’t my client and their competitors.  It was yoga studios, The Food Network, and Special K cereal.  They had no idea that they weren’t just in the ring with competitors they knew about, they were going to have to participate with anyone having a similar conversation with their target audience.

1) Find Out Who They Are:

Who else is talking to the audience I’m targeting about the same type of ideas?

You can do a number of searches to figure this out.  Search Twitter, Search on Google, set up an alert for the topics you talk about and see who else is weighing in and how, look through Facebook, etc.  This is a better view of your landscape and will help you construct a better strategy because you will have a better idea of the conversation and who is participating.

2) Where Are They Succeeding?  Where Are They Dropping The Ball?

Sometimes, these are obvious.  Let’s take my weight loss product client again.  While most of their competitors were on Facebook and Twitter having great conversations, there were lots and lots of individuals uploading photos of their healthy meals for weight loss on Flickr, and no one was responding to these.  This is how we started to determine where there were opportunities online for my client to take the lead.

3) If You Can’t Beat Them…..

Sometimes the brands having robust conversation online won’t be competitive enough that you can’t work together.  LOTS of brands co-write blog posts, host contests, and come out with online deals together because they can better have a conversation with this audience if they do it together.

Strategy Thought: Building your strategy shouldn’t be just about keeping up with the Jones’s Facebook Page.  Determine where there is unique opportunity by finding mediums or platforms that aren’t as heavily used (Tumblr is doing VERY well with audiences but most brands haven’t jumped in here yet) but will still resonate with the audience.

The film ‘Between the Folds’ is a documentary about origami.  It covers everything about how origami originated, how its made, and who is the best at it.  It also shows all of the different uses for origami – some scientists are using it to figure out how to fold the airbags into the steering wheel of a car.  Some people are using it to talk about math and the universe.  One artist is making little people out of it and says that he can never make the same one twice.

There is an undertone of debate about what ‘good origami’ is. At the origami shows people try to come in with shapes that have the most folds (like 200 or 300) and that is the winning measurement.  But that’s not the end of the story,  some origami artists say that they try to make an interesting shape out of the least amount of folds – like one fold.

Some of the older origami artists said that at first they felt like they wanted to have more and more folds so that their emotion would be sure to be visible through their mastery of the craft.  Then, they started removing the folds that were only technical so that all that remained was the emotional folds.  Each fold held something important.

This made me think about strategy.  Some people want to make very complicated plans and want to see a million tools and platforms that have created an intricate shape and message.

Sometimes you can make a killer strategy with just one fold.

“Forget safety, live where you fear to live”  ~Rumi

I started telling people a week or so ago that Ryan and I were moving to Boston.  We collected boxes, started packing the kitchen stuff and talked a lot about the move.  We discussed how this might work, how my business would do, how I would meet people.  The more I talked with the people in my life about moving the more I found myself using  the same analogy to describe it:

“I’m jumping off the diving board and hoping there’s water in the pool” ~ me

I thought it was kind of a funny/true way to describe it and was feeling rather brave and bold by the idea.  But as this became my moving mantra a little pinhole of worry crept into the statement.   At the end of this week I had something of a lightning bolt hit me – I am actually afraid there’s going to be no water in the pool.

Then the flood came over the weekend:

what if I don’t meet people?  What if people in Boston only want to work with people from Boston?  Who do I think I am moving a whole business? What if people think my logo is stupid?  What if people think my ideas are stupid? What if I have a bad day and want to go to a movie with a friend but can’t because I haven’t met anyone who likes me enough to hang out with me on a bad day yet?

I realize reading those last statements that if someone told me that they were afraid of that above list that I would tell them that they were being ridicuous.   Yet there they are, first thing this morning I’m thinking ‘what if I forget to forward all of my business payment addresses and I NEVER get a check in the mail again and I am homeless and shoeless under a bridge?” – yes, it’s that dramatic.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this big change is a huge opportunity for me but to get to the opportunity part I have to let go of some old things that I don’t want to have in my life anymore and I have to basically let go of my entire comfort zone.

The rational thinking side of me knows that leaving your comfort zone can be a really great thing.  I’ve read loads of posts about it:  here’s a good one from Business Insider,  here’s one from Tiny Buddha,  here’s an article about why moving is good for you.

This week none of those posts worked on me, it’s still really scary.

Confession over.

Anyone else moved to a completely new place and felt the fear?

So, big news for Real Bullets Branding!
I’ve decided to move the whole show to Boston after long hours of trying to figure out if Madison was the right city (for a while it was), or if the winters were going to be warmer than Wisconsin (they aren’t really), and if I could learn to root for a team that’s not the Brewers (no way).

Truthfully, a smaller city like Madison is awesome for starting a company.  Living expenses are reasonable and there aren’t as many crazy fun things to distract you from doing something like working insane hours on a business.  Even the New York Times says you have to be a little bit cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs to be an entrepreneur so its best if you can make the ‘where you live’ part really easy.

At first, this was great – I had a nice reasonable rent and I didn’t have to make all that much money to survive.  Then after a while I started getting clients in other states that wanted me to come see them.  I started having to fly to conferences because the big ones are almost never near Madison and it’s altogether possible that I am personally supporting Kayak.com and Starwood Hotels.  When I added it all up, I could be living in a more accessible city for the same amount.

Actually, you should just read Penelope Trunk’s post about where to start a company: Starting a company in Silicon Valley is Stupid.  I asked her one time where she thought I should move the company and she told me Detroit since it’s rebuilding AND low cost.

So with the move now in full swing I became obsessed with all of the great sites and apps devoted to helping you figure out where you should live like:

Walkscore.com – you put in an address, a neighborhood, a street, and it tells you how walkable it is.  It’s like a gift from above.

Eat St. - app that tells you where all the food trucks are in the area.

Aroundme - Great app that tells you quite literally, what’s around you – this is perfect for a person like me that finds themselves in a strange city or neighborhood and wants to walk to coffee, nail salon, vodka bar business meeting.

I’m going to do my best to document the process of moving a company across the country so if any of you would like to hear about any specific part of the process – let me know!

I just had to post this.  It looks like the coolest conference ever.  And it’s in a tent, so that’s pretty fabulous too.

Do Lectures Trailer from The Do Lectures on Vimeo.

I’ve been working from Boston this week so I’ve had the great fortune to hang out with some internet friends I haven’t seen in a while as well as meet some new people.  One of the things I love about conferences, parties, and seeing old friends is that you usually end up having loads of good conversation.  One in particular really stood out because we went around and around with this for hours.

Is being an entrepreneur the same as being a business owner?  Are the terms interchangeable?

It seems like being an entrepreneur is such a popular title these days and it’s being applied to every possible job title from franchise owners to the unemployed.  I should add that all of the people talking about this subject were in fact business owners.  Yet, we couldn’t agree at all on the answer.

The actual definition of an entrepreneur is this: A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on financial risk to do so.

My take: Not interchangeable

I always felt that ‘entrepreneur’ was more of a characteristic than a vocation.  That a person who was an administrative assistant or a construction worker could be ‘entrepreneurial’, much like being creative.  Perhaps once you start labeling yourself as an entrepreneur you should have created some sort of business that is different or that aims to further an industry.  So, a franchise owner wouldn’t necessarily qualify under my definition just having bought a franchise.

Another sides:

A few people considered the term ‘entrepreneur’ to be completely interchangeable with ‘business owner’.  It was vocation based only and some even said that you had to have reached some level of success with the business before you really qualified to call yourself an entrepreneur (we couldn’t even remotely come to an agreement on what that level of success might be).

Some thought that to be an entrepreneur you had to have employees – this would exclude consultants and bloggers from being entrepreneurs.

It became such a hot topic that we eventually decided that it would be a great question to pose to others over the next few weeks while I’m here and return to the subject later.

So what do you think?  Who can be an entrepreneur?

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of emails from people wondering whether they should consult, freelance, start a business, or if it even matters which road you take so it seemed like maybe a post on the subject might help.

I stayed a consultant for 2 years before I formed Real Bullets Branding because when you first go off on your own you’re going to have to think about a lot of things that you didn’t before.  Like, “what does my schedule look like?”, “how am I going to structure my offerings?”, and mainly “how am I going to pay my bills?”.  Actually, you’ll spend most of your time thinking about that last one.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to decide which one fits for you:

1) Might I Get Another Job? This one is really important because perhaps you are planning to work with a few clients while you take a long, hard look at what you’d like your next full time gig to be.  Even if you aren’t going to actively search for a new job, would you take one if a great opportunity came along? If so, then consulting is much easier to transition into a full time job than closing a business.  Plus people will want to know why you closed said business on your resume whereas it’s not as stigmatized if you do it as a consultant.

2) Is Your Network Tied To Your Name? In other words, do the people that you want to work with know you as ‘Caitlin from Madison’ (people probably don’t know you as Caitlin from Madison, but you get the idea)? If so, then realize that your potential clients may not recognize you when you start emailing them as “Red Chair Industries”.  When you’re spending a ton of time trying to pay your bills, don’t have a sales team, and already have a ready to go network that knows you personally, it might make sense to consult for a while.

3) Do You Have Time To Spend On Branding? This was a big eye opener to me.  I figured that opening a business would be the same as consulting I would just have a better company name.  The truth is, your business is going to require branding of its own.  You’ll have to introduce people to your business, market it as a separate entity, and things that you might have only been doing for yourself previously.  This takes a lot of time and if you don’t have a lot of marketing experience, could end up becoming a major expense.

On the other hand:

4) Do You Know Your Tax Laws? If you are consulting or opening a business you need to befriend a CPA right away.  I feel really bad for mine because I ask him totally ridiculous amateur questions on a near constant basis but a good CPA can pretty much save your life as a business owner.  They can also tell you whether your state is friendly to entrepreneurs or not.  Here’s a link to a map where you can see what kinds of rules your state has.  The small business and entrepreneurial council also recently ranked states with the lowest burdens on growth for small businesses – South Dakota and Nevada topped the list and New Jersey and the District of Columbia ended up in dead last.

5) Do You Let Your Business Come Home With You? For me, separating my business from my persona really helped me take a much needed step away from my business.  It was more of a mental thing for me but once I created a separate entity for my business to flow through it really helped me take my days off without checking emails every 10 minutes.  If you are the type of person that is always ‘on’ you might find it helpful to just bite the bullet and open the business.

I don’t often sit for a whole 6 minute video these days but I enjoyed every second of this one.  It features Michael Wolff, co-founder of Wolff Olins Agency and he is arguably one of the most accomplished thinkers about brand (one of my all time favorite topics).

Best Part: When Wolff makes the point that if you go to a store you don’t respect that much and they are out of your favorite product you think “what a crap store”. If you go to a store you really respect and they are out of your favorite product you think “I should have been there earlier”. It’s a really interesting concept and basically, branding can be that difference.

enjoy!