I’ve read over and over again how email saps your creativity. It pulls you into someone else’s issues and desires.

When those issues and desires are your clients’ issues and desires you are very tempted to make them your own.

However! I strongly believe that is not in the best interest of your clients.

If you are the business owner there is nothing more important than for you to make your business as strong and healthy as you are able.

A weak, limping company does no one any good:

• You
• Your employees
• Especially your clients

A strong, healthy company makes everyone else’s life better. You can provide better services and you can provide a better work place for your employees.

As the owner of your company there is nothing more important than making sure your company is strong and healthy.

That is the wisdom I’ve learned over 11 years and two recessions. I’ve lived through getting that wisdom.

If you are new to business please trust me on this. Your business’ health is your number one priority.

But then again, the only reason I’m writing this is to convince myself not to look at my email right away. I still am so tempted to deal with other people’s needs and desires.

Coming into 2012 I have a laser beam focus: I want to get SageRock to $3 million.  I’m probably at a 10th of that for  2011.

There are two ways to get there:

• Sales and marketing
• Acquisition

The fastest way of getting to the $3 million is to acquire companies.

The problem with that is that: A. I don’t know the first thing about acquiring companies. and B. I have no money.

I’m thinking about trying to get some money from JumpStart Inc.

But I’m not confident they would be interested in funding a service business like mine. Although, I have some interesting offshoots like SageRock Places and SageRock System.

Those might peak their curiosity.

They other strategy could be to look into giving companies we partner with a percentage of the business. You never know what might happen unless you try.

But I feel I still have my own weakness: Sales.

Part of me believes that I need to shore that up before I do anything else.

Ultimately, however, I think the two need to work in tandem: Acquisition and Sales.

I’ll do that for a while and see which one sticks.

Now… to that email.

Consumer Electronics Show 2012 Date: Jan 22, 2012 Number of Photos in Album: 6 View Album

from Sage Lewis’s Photo Gallery https://picasaweb.google.com/116437168519004876189/CES2012 https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-FXIr52Zq0rw/TxwsBXNMOME/AAAAAAAAgxY/u9bmg2aoElg/s160-c/CES2012.jpg

I just wanted to jot this down really quick before I forgot it.

At the Consumer Electronics, Show Stephanie Pence VP of Communications of Dish put up this slide:

People spend 30 hours a week watching TV. That’s up 40 minutes from last year. “People spend as much time watching TV as working.”

I could spend a lot of time rambling on about that all. But I’ll just let the numbers speak for themselves and you can judge.

I am one of those guys that feels like his business has puttered along for the last decade doing OK.

I’m actually very proud of the work that we do. But I’m not overly impressed with the growth of our company. If I were an investor, I would consider SageRock the sleeper investment in my portfolio.

Unfortunately for me, it’s pretty much the only thing in my portfolio.

I’ve recently been asking myself why that is. Here are some reasons off the top of my head:

• Smallish market in Northeast Ohio (being in a larger market might give me access to bigger accounts).
• I’m a piss poor sales person. I’m pretty good at awareness building. But I’m SO bad at sales. It’s a miracle I’ve gotten this far… especially because an expensive service requires so much sales. 
• I have no product. Selling a product doesn’t scale that well. This actually has not been a huge problem for me because of the previous point. But still. I think it contributes to keeping us small.

I would say those are the three biggies. If I was analyzing my business as a third party (which isn’t terribly easy to do) I’m pretty sure those would be the big 3 hurdles holding me back.

I’ve been pondering these 3 issues for a while and have been tentatively putting together a strategy for dealing with each of them:

• I’m considering getting a small office in Manhattan. 
• I’m thinking about testing some outbound calling people and/or services.
• I believe the SageRock System is a particularly good product for distributor/dealer networks. I’ve actually sold two of those to different companies that sell through dealer networks.

These are the ways I’m considering dealing with these weaknesses. 

The issue I have is: Should I try to attack all of these at the same time. Or should I pick one at a time?

The second and third points actually would work well together. I could use an outbound calling program to test reaching out to these dealer networks. 

As I work through this here it all makes me think about at least starting with the second and third ideas at first. Plus NYC in January and February is not the most pleasant

I will say this, however, I feel strongly about pushing hard in 2012. All signs are pointing towards this being a good year. 2011 ended quite well. We’ve worked hard at continuing to increase our awareness 

I really feel like we need to reach out a bit to people to talk with them about what we can offer.

If you see any glaring errors with any of this please let me know.

I am an optimist at heart. But I’m especially optimistic about 2012.

Here is an economist that makes my case better than I ever could.

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/01/my-last-death-threat-in-2011/

Remember 2000 when everyone said, “man, I wish I knew a boom was coming in 1996.” Well, here we are again.

As I sit around on January 1 appreciating all that I (we) have, I stopped over at Wikipedia to bask in its glow endless information that sits on my dining room table.

I thought I’d learn a little about social security (a system, btw, I totally support and believe will always be around (I just think we’ll be older before we get it (I’m thinking I’ll be 75 before I get it.))).

I learned two interesting things. 

First:

By dollars paid, the U.S. Social Security program is the largest government program in the world and the single greatest expenditure in the federal budget, with 20.8% for social security, compared to 20.5% for discretionary defense and 20.1% for Medicare/Medicaid.

That makes me appreciate, a bit, the Republican stance of social programs. Almost 41% of all our U.S. money goes to helping those in need. That’s impressive, if you ask me. 

America often comes across as cold and uncaring. But clearly we care a pretty great deal. 41% seems like a generous percentage for social security and Medicare.

I’ve never asked, “What percentage should it be?”

If I was designing the system I probably would think I was making a pretty impressive system if our country gave 41% of revenue to those in need. 

What percentage do you think it should be?

So that was cool to think about.

Second, check this:

Social Security (United States) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The first monthly payment was issued on January 31, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. In 1937, 1938 and 1939 she paid a total of $24.75 into the Social Security System. Her first check was for $22.54. After her second check, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the three-year period. She lived to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92.

This strikes me as a symbolic story of difficult things to come. If the very first person got thousands and thousands more than she put in it stands to reason we might have been entering a system that would be difficult to sustain.

We actually have probably done pretty darn well with the system we have.

I really just think it’s hard to run a country.

I actually think Santa paid more for them because they where significantly more expensive at the school store. ($36 is the number that I think I heard tossed around.)

Who would pay even $21 for 16 crayons? Especially since you can get 64 crayons at Amazon for $6.36 here:

Amazon.com: Crayola 64 Ct Crayons: Toys & Games

Maybe it’s because of where they are manufactured. Maybe those lousy, no good Crayola people have outsourced yet another perfectly good American job to some third world country, just so I can get a cheap crayon.

According to Wikipedia

Crayola has manufacturing plants in Forks Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Mexico City, Mexico.

So at least some of their crayons are probably made right here in the U.S.A. All of them are made in North America.

The $21 crayons aren’t made here. In fact, I can’t tell where the hell they are made. I think it’s German on the box. I can’t read a word of it.

Maybe they color like silk with strikingly brilliant colors. Nope. Pretty much exactly like Crayola.

What they are is beautiful.

Stockmar Beeswax Block Crayons are beeswax, rectangular crayons that come in a beautiful tin box. They look like art supplies for a professional artist.

They have no paper wrapper. They are just beautiful, pure crayons.

They are an experience.

You have to open the metal box by holding the base with your thumb and middle finger as you carefully swing up the hinged top with your other hand. The box requires you to open the crayons like unveiling something special.

I’m too lazy to get out a ruler but each crayon appears to be the exact dimension of the golden rectangle:

Everything about these crayons is done with love and careful, careful attention to detail.

The end result is a box of 16 crayons for somewhere between $21 – $36.

Now, I guarantee Stockmar is not anywhere near the ballpark of doing the kind of business Crayola is doing. But I would not be surprised to learn that they are doing quite well in their own right. Why compete with Crayola? Your chances of winning are slim to none. These people realized they weren’t in the crayon business. They are in the beautiful world of a child’s creative mind. Crayola is in the crayon business.

I don’t want to lessen the beauty of these crayons, or any special product. But I think it’s important to call it what it is: It’s marketing.

Sure. They love their crayons. There is love all over them.

But the precision of how everything is laid out is no random act. This was done to stand out and be unique. It was a masterful plan of marketing.

Marketing was built into the crayon itself.

So often we bolt our marketing on to our product after the fact. The best marketing is baked right in.

If you have never seen an exhibit of Marina Abramović, I would strongly encourage you to do so.

I saw her at the Museum of Modern Art in 2010.

She is a performance artist who does really striking things. This is what I saw her doing at MOMA:

She was in the center of this huge room that extended up at least 3 stories.

She sat at this table, all day, every day for months.

You could then come join her at the table (like the lady on the left here) and stare at her as she stares at you.

It was a surreal experience. I continue to think about it often to this day.

But a couple nights ago I finally saw Jackass 3:

This film was premiered at MOMA. You can read how Kyle Smith calls it “the most embarrassing piece ever to be showcased at New York’s Museum of Modern Art” here.

This statement reminded me of my first 20th Century art teacher (in the early 1990′s) degrading Andy Warhol as a “pseudo-artist.”

I would not consider myself an art scholar. I’m a casual observer (mostly of 20th and 21st century art) with a great deal of love and fascination.

One thing I hear over and over again is “professionals” trying to tell me (and the world) what is and isn’t art.

I guarantee they all now fully accept as high art, artists that were looked down upon at their time.

Let me give you a few examples:

van Gogh:

Duchamp:

Gauguin:

Warhol:

Basquiat:

Banksy:

I bet there might be some people reading this that would even question my inclusion of the last two artists. But make no mistake: they are great artists.

I believe the trick in determining what is art is comparing it to a craft. What is art? And what is a craft?

Art is making a statement. A craft stands alone with no reference to anything else.

Now, one could say that good art could be something that is indeed isolated and non-referential. But the moment you make that statement it is no longer a craft. It is now art.

A windsock is just a windsock. There is nothing wrong with it, certainly. But it’s a craft. It isn’t art.

Johnny Knoxville is connecting us to our deepest roots: Shit, piss, vomit and pain. And he makes fun of it. He defiles the defiler. He takes it and faces it head on. He takes the most vile, disgusting aspects of the world and makes them hilarious. I’d like to see you do it… something I often hear people say about 20th century art. “I could do that.” Well, I actually don’t think you could do what Johnny Knoxville does.

Marina Abramović did the exact same thing.

She had her helpers naked all over the Museum of Modern Art. She pushes the boundaries of pain and suffering as well.

Take a look at this 50 second video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tz-K4EC8hw

Tell me Johnny Knoxville wouldn’t do this same thing… except 10 times more extreme. Marina Abramović was the Johnny Knoxville of her time.

But this is why I think Johnny Knoxville is a greater artist than Marina Abramović:

She takes herself too seriously. It’s her fundamental flaw.

She is a great artist and she knows it. Because of that her art always carries with it a feeling of elitism and separation. She makes you walk to her table in the center a great room in a great muesuem and do something of significant importance.

Because of her arrogance she never truly connects.

Johnny Knoxville connects.

If nothing else, Johnny Knoxville is not an elitist. He is the opposite. He lives in dirt, shit and violent animals. He has completely removed all sense of boundries and being “proper.”

He takes us to the place of our nightmares and shows us its humor.

Freud educated us about the anal and oral stages of development. He defined our two main drives: death and sex.

Johnny Knoxville lives in those worlds and pushes them farther than anyone ever has.

There isn’t a more meaningful set of topics to all of humanity than our urine, feces and dealing with pain and suffering.

Johnny Knoxville is a great artist and possibly will go down in history as one of the all time great performance artists.

This is actually both Thanksgiving and Christmas Date: Dec 26, 2011 Number of Photos in Album: 25 View Album

from Sage Lewis’s Photo Gallery https://picasaweb.google.com/116437168519004876189/Christmas2011 https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-9lmBnM_gLNo/Tvk1npHRw7E/AAAAAAAAgAY/g3QA-ELW3JI/s160-c/Christmas2011.jpg

When I first read this I didn’t know who wrote it.

But then I saw a tweet from Danny Sullivan and it made sense.

Danny has always had an amazing knack at covering his topic in a thorough way. I always thought it was just because he understood search so well that he was able to tell me the complete story (background and all) better than anyone else.

But with this article I now realize he is just an overall gifted researcher and analyst.

So please take a moment to check out this article on tracking Santa.

For me the best part is learning how NORAD (the military people who monitor the sky for hostile threats) got involved in the Santa tracking business.

Where’s Santa Claus? The 2011 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Your Phone!

http://searchengineland.com/wheres-santa-claus-the-2011-santa-tracker-list-105700