Ok it was about 5,000 feet up.
I was on my ascent to Reno from an awesome day at the SEMA show presenting on search marketing in Las Vegas. I got on the plane and was pissed, why? Because of that stupid no electronic devices rule (c’mon guys, if I can cause you that many problems with a laptop looking for wifi, you’ve got biger prolems). I was swamped with work, and wanted that couple minutes to keep banging away at work.
Now that I read more and more on my iPad, I was stuck…no magazine, no newspaper, no printouts, just me and that seat back pocket magazine from Southwest called Spirit Magazine – here’s their Twitter account.
So I opened it up, little did I know the lessons, I would learn on the ascent to Reno.
1 – What did Spirit Magazine teach me about my business?
As I read about pilots (like Paul Feichtinger) who fly F16’s in our national guard and double as southwest pilots and as I read about pilot Gary Im and his volunteer efforts, it reminded me so much about humanizing your business, giving your business a personality. I think we do a decent job of it, but it got me thinking of ways we can improve.
For starters, I NEVER review blog posts before they go up, our blog is there for our team to express their views w/o my approval.
As a company with a heafty volunteer component, I bet most people don’t know about the hours that people at SEER pour into making this world a better place in addition to “kicking some search engine buttocks”.
Right now we add everyone’s early childhood picture to every proposal, giving holiday gifts to clients now is done with just give, and I’m looking for more ways to get the SEER story out there. My next big goal is to have breakfast with every one of our employees at least every other month – not to review their work, but to understand whats going on with them. To ask about their families, their volunteer efforts, their goals and how SEER can help them achieve them. This is going to be tough and I may not succeed, but I am going to try.
2 – How did Spirit magazine help me think of a link building idea?
Simple, as I flipped through the pages I saw an ad from one of our clients, ummmm hello…you might want to tell us about such things. As such as soon as I am done writing this I’m firing out an email to Brett letting him know they are using landing pages – and that I bet they have a bunch of old ads with vanity URLs that are probably not 301’s. Thank you Spirit magazine, you helped me build links for my client!
3 – Lastly, what did a PAPER magazine teach me about ONLINE social media?
Ok, so I am on a flight to reno visiting 2 clients, and before takeoff (since I can’t be online on southwest planes…cmon guys) I send out this tweet / update.
I get a response from GoTahoeNorth.com … someone I don’t follow, but I figured ok whatever, and shut down my laptop figuring I MIGHT take a look.
Then as I am flipping through the magazine I see an ad from them! Instantly it gave me a feeling that these guys are credible. Your reaction might be different, but for me it made me feel a little bit like OK, I really should check these guys out now. Major reminder that offline media influences credibility a lot which helps the online. I took that thinking into my client meeting right after I landed with some of the best guys, selling the best snowboards on the web. We talked for 7 hours about SEO, but for a good hour I hammered home how offline perceptions will help them with their online objectives.
I also walked out with this dope longboard (on the left)
Yes Nora & MOM, I did buy a helmet too!
4 – I need some more gadgets in my life
Lacie’s USB key
will potentially finally rid me of the 10 USB sticks that I have and the fact that I always lose them, leave them in my pockets (so they can be washed), or forget them when I travel. Having one that is thin enough and durable enough to keep with me on my keychain is KEY! Not to mention the element 02 grill by fuego, that I MAY consider sitting in my back yard.
So my biggest takeaway…there are lessons about life, love, and yes business, all around us. The question is do you keep your eyes open for those lessons? Are you an opportunist? Do you look at every single interaction as a chance to learn, even when the learning opportunity is not obvious.
And yeah, I also realized that maybe unplugging for all of about 7 minutes on an ascent can be as much of a learning experience as reading 300 blog posts this week and going to pubcon to learn all about SEO tricks.
Thank you Spirit Magazine and southwest for helping me learn some lessons about my business.
PS I would LOVE (LUV) to fly you guys more often (b/c I love your people, I even had the rapping flight attending on my flight to Vegas from Philly a year ago) but you guys aren’t in the star alliance so I am stuck with US Air, who never responds to my tweets… and treat me and my gold membership like a second class citizen. If you guys ever get in the star alliance I’m SOOO in, but I lose all my international travel points 🙁
OH BTW can you guys do something about this turbulence its killing me, I’m still a little scared of flying.