Griffin spends hours watching Chuggaaconroy and NintendoCapriSun narrate their console game exploits relatd to Pikmin, Zelda and Super Mario. There’s actually a name for it. It’s called “Let’s Play.” G probably does it as much as he plays the actual console games.

Half the time, we make him watch them without sound. Especially Chuggaaconroy, because he can drop some language. Never an f-bomb, but G is still G, not PG-13, you know?

Still, I’m jealous of these nerds. As much as we small business owners wish for social media presences, we got nothing on these Let’s Play dudes.

Chuggaconroy has 382,766 YouTube subscribers and over 61million channel views! He also has 37,342 Twitter followers and 80,582 Facebok likes with 2,534 people talking about his Facebook page.

NintendoCapriSun has 167,228 YouTube subscribers and 99, 487,462 channel views. Nearly 100milion! On Twitter he has 10, 573 followers. His Facebook numbers are quite modest however, only 604 likes.

What is the lesson to be learned here? I think it’s personality.

These twenty-something guys make a living by layering entertainment on top of entertainment kind of like MSTK3000 (that’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 to the unhip). The inject their personality into what’s ostensibly tips, techniques and cheats. The videos highlight their gameplay skill, the voiceovers provide a steady stream of tips, commentary, complete with screams of agony and ecstacy depending upon how things are going.

For the average small business owner this translates into the important “Never Be Boring Lesson.” It’s easy to separate yourself from your competitors when you take aggressive steps brand yourself as Mr. Insurance or Mrs. Nails in your marketplace.

You do this by demonstrating excellent technical chops and mixing in with a healthy dose of personality and fun. Technical skill is the ante. You have to have this first and then build from it. Marketing-wise, this means you adopt media like PR and public speaking, and also visual media like web videos (you DO have your own YouTube Channel, right?) so people can see your eyes and see you entertain and inform. If you do direct mail, you create fun, outrageous offers. If you do a newsletter, you have fun with it. One of the top newsletters for Dentists is actually an activity book for the toilet. That’s right, it’s sold to dentist’s by a third party and it licenses top content from national newspaper and magazine columnists and includes crosswords and sudokus and has nothing to do with dentistry! And it’s terrifically successful.

The thing with newsletters is that people seem compelled to fill them with boring industry info. Let’s keep that in trade rags and account statements, shall we? The real reason to send a newsletter is three-fold. First to keep in touch. Second to build a relationship (you do that with personality and fun and by sharing). Last, to make a sales offer. Nothing industry- or product-related required!

What steps could you take to brand your business with your personality to competitve advantage? If you’re struggling for ideas, give me a jingle!

What’s In A Name?

A company name is often a big deal. There are firms who just consult with companies on names. It’s big bucks.

I admit SmallBizWithKids.com is not the best name for a marketing company. It’s not loaded with keywords for SEO. It’s not enitrely descriptive of what I do and how I help companies achieve more sales at lower cost with more time for what’s important. It’s not a whole bunch of things.

What SmallBizWithKids is, is a value statement. The good news is this was not lost on everybody. For every person who said I chose a crummy name, I got kudos from someone who got it. From the woman who hired me for my very first corporate job way back when, I got…

I love how your values shine through!

And today, I got this note from a chef who is rescheduling with me a second time…

Good God man, will it never end? I offer my humble apologies Tim, I have yet another field trip to chaperone on Tuesday (I need to take advantage of these opportunities while the kids still want me around!).

To be honest, I love that excuse!

My values are big on spending quality time with my son and my wife, and I strive to be the dad who makes the school plays (made one today in fact!), the choir, the soccer games. I feel strongly that you can live a rich life with quality friends and family and you don’t need material wealth to be a complete person.

Now, if you can manage both…well, that’s something to aim for! And that’s what I want to help my clients do.

So how do these values develop? I’m not sure, but I remember over a decade ago when I was coaching a high school age girl’s soccer team. My goalkeeper at the time was named Zebby. She was a Senior in high school and soon to graduate. Her father was CEO of an international agriculture business headquartered in town.

While Zebby’s mom made every game, her dad never did. On one occasion Zebby’s dad was around for a practice or something. I called him aside and reminded him that within five months his daughter would be out of the house and that his time with her was short. I don’t know why I singled the boss man out for this attention, I had never done that before, but I just remember feeling it had to be done.

Happily, Zebby’s dad made every game and even watched us practice a few times. Now that is a man who won’t regret his choices.

Sadly, I can relate the flip side as well. Another CEO-father of one of my soccer players lost his daughter in a car accident. She and her fiance were killed returning to campus from a jaunt home to plan their wedding. Tragedy defined.

Some years later I ran into this man at a downtown Happy Hour. I knew him of course, because I coached his daughter for several years while she was in high school. I went up and said hi and shared that I was his daughter’s coach. The man simply unloaded!

He fired question after question at me about his daughter. I can’t imagine the size and breadth of the hole in one’s heart one gets with the death of a child, but I got a good long look at regret that evening. The poor man clearly had achieved career success but at the expense of his family. Now absent, the gap was traumatic.

So SmallBizWithKids is a value statement. It’s about putting in place marketing and operating systems and best practices that drive sales in a more cost-efficient and time-efficient way. So we can attend the school play and puruse our hobbies and enjoy our families – the stuff that’s really and truly important.

If you are someone that gets it, then I want to work with you. That’s pretty simple. If you get it, you’re probably my ideal customer and we definitely should talk to see if there’s a fit.

As for making the school play today…there were six kids in the cast and four sets of parents present. So I am proud of the parents who finagled their schedules  so they could attend. They’re my kind of peeps!

I recall one field trip I was on as a child. I don’t remember what grade I was in. I think Third. We visited a local candy manufacturer and I was so excited. At every stop on the plant tour I was in front. This meant I had to shoulder my way through my classmates in order to be first at the next stop. I only realized that I did this after the fact.

As we drove to swimming last night I offered Griffin a wager. If he would take the last or second to last turn in everything for the whole lesson, I’d buy him Culver’s frozen custard. His side was the opposite, if he ever went first, he had to buy me custard.

Griffin agreed and dang if he didn’t win!

Hopefully he learned that you can enjoy class without needing to take the first turn. I know he learned that Daddy is as good as his word!

Thing is, the survey of 5,000 moms said these lies form a vicious circle of inadequacy as the little white lies about quality time spent with partner and children feed back and form when moms don’t reveal the truth about their life.

Is it really necessary to cover up that you’re exhausted and needed a nap by saying you didn’t answer the phone because you were baking cookies?

Parents need to come to terms with the fact that raising kids is not a contest. As the survey says, “You’re in competition with no-one but yourself – all you can do is the best for you and your kid.”

Your household is entitled to its own rules and standards as fit the family, period. Like I say, I doing this parenting thing for the first time and I don’t have all the answers. I just try to do the best I can and ask for help when I need it.

In response to the survey, or really, as a part of a pre-planned launch, Netmums declared 2011 year of “The Real Parenting Revolution” when “mums and dads across the country breathe a huge sigh of relief as the expectation of being a ‘perfect parent’ is finally lifted from our shoulders.” If you’ve found yourself telling little white lies to impress, cover up or because you’re not accepting of your own abilities, why not check out The Real Parenting Revolution here?

Wait! There it is again.

Nope. It hasn’t moved.

Something’s been tapping in Griffin’s wall.

I walked the house and didn’t see any footprints in the snow. Did see some tiny mouse or vole tracks on the other side of the house though.

I made sure to look up and see if there were any holes in the siding or eaves. Nope.

I got the ladder out and checked the roof. Just smooth, clean snow.

I checked the walls of the garage. Nope.

One last place to look. Up through the scuttle hole in the closet into the attic.

I remembered my Grandma’s house in rural Iowa and how I used to love to go up into her attic. She had one of those trap doors with the folding ladders. I’d ask to go up there nearly every time we visited. Even when it was stifling hot in the summer.

I liked the smell of the old and my imagination raced as I rummaged in the boxes and suitcases, discovering these family artifacts.

My dad’s old toys, old family albums, old-time contraptions.

Sometimes I’d bring a couple items down and ask my Grandma or Great Aunt about them. Sometimes I was just content to create my own story for whatever it was that intrigued me that day.

I remembered all that and waited until Griffin was home from school so he could help me check out our attic.

We cleared the top shelf of his closet and I unlatched the scuttle. I cautiously put more weight on the shelf, leaving a foot on the ladder until I was certain it would hold.

Cold air sunk through the scuttle hole, as I pushed while twisting and redistributing my weight. Pushing up some more, I was finally standing on the shelf and looking into the attic.

Shining the flashlight in an arc, the attic, was dim, calm and devoid of any life. No critters, no history, no family memories or old-time gadgets. Just a plain, flat sea of gray cellulose eighteen inches deep.

I knew it would be so. Even if there were critters in the attic, I’d expect them to be tunneling through the cellulose, not scooting along top.

My turn done, I let Griffin take a peek.

He was eager. This was new and exciting. Easy there, keep your weight towards the back so the shelf won’t tip!

“Oh my God!” he said as he pivoted in a full circle scanning with the flashlight.

He was down in less than a minute. At Grandma’s, I would’ve been remained for a half hour or longer.

Our feet never left the shelf and we didn’t crawl out of the scuttle hole because today’s attics don’t have floorboards.

Today’s attics don’t fuel the imagination in quite the same way either.

  
“Tim, I can tell you have a really great Dad.” This disarming compliment was given to me by someone who out to know. Larry Bilotta helps save marriages for a living. We had just met at a marketing meeting in Green Bay.

So as I reflected on why Larry said what he did, Oprah’s words gave me pause because my Dad spent a lot of time with me. Her words resonated further because I’ve been having the feeling I was getting sucked too far “working in” my business, rather than spending time “working on” my business.

Anke and I just attended our first Parent-Teacher Conference at Kid’s Express, a milestone to be sure, and my comment to Anke afterwards was, “If they all go like that, then we’ll know we’ve done a good job with G.”

Seeking answers, I was referred to Tim Ferris’ excellent “4-Hour Work Week.” Two tiny tweaks I implemented were to set my email to check for messages every 4 hours and to return calls only twice per day. Now that I’ve taken back some control, what happened? People are complaining—Including the person who referred me to the book in the first place! Oh well, they will learn and a balance will be struck.

I’ve also committed to reading less. I realized that although I’m a sponge, I didn’t have the time to execute all the great stuff I’m absorbing. So (and this is really hard for me), I will have select my reading even more carefully or else my stack of books will get too tall. I’ve done this once before when I cancelled “recreational” magazine subscriptions to MIT’s Technology Review and Small Times, a nanotechnology rag.

So if I’m trying to define my business self, it’s getting back to that more strategic role and becoming a worker bee only in carefully screened circumstances, where the opportunity is maximized.

I often work from home and my “14 step commute” isn’t often a transition that works for me, so what I’m trying to accomplish as a parent is to be a dad whose mind is clear enough from “work detritus” that I can focus 100% on Griffin when we are together.

What I’m trying to accomplish as a spouse right now is to spend more time with Anke doing fun things.  At last report I was succeeding.

So that’s some of my thinking on time and what you can do with it. What do you do with your time and who does it say you are?

This  morning Griffin decided to dress me.  He’s big into imitating Daddy.

He selected black socks. Ordinarily not a bad choice, except that I planned on spending the day working the phones in the home office.

Next came athletic compression short for my underpants. Then a very loud surf t-shirt and some old ill-fitting shorts.

I wonder if he’s fashion challenged, or if he’s just 4 years old? Or…he’s trying to tell me something!

G didn’t stop there. No, he actually insisted on dressing me.

The socks were fitted and after much tugging and straining ended up being backwards. At that point I intervened and helped with the rest of the clown suit.

Anke took a look at me and rolled her eyes and when Grandma came over at lunch time she commented on my black socks. Nice.

I love my son!