One of the things I have learned, often the hard way, is that is does not really matter how good an idea seems to you. That goes for any idea: a product, a website, a logo, marketing copy… your opinion don’t mean spit.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but so are ideas. Many times in the past I found myself driving along and all of the sudden, whammo, the idea of the century slams into my brain, and I literally wet my pants thinking about all the money it will make me. So I run back to my office and start working on my version of a business plan. My version of a business plan is usually a website. I grab some domain name that seems remotely related to my idea, throw up a wordpress install, start bolting on a bunch of random plugins, tweak, customize etc. Fortunately, I have enough practice that I can generally knock this out in a weekend. Come Monday, I launch. Email blasts, tweets, google and facebook ads, you know, the whole shebang. Then I sit back and wait.

99.9% of the time nothing happens. As a result, I have about 25 or so businesses floating around out there doing absolutely nothing. When I don’t see that immediate result, I quickly move on. Every now and then I go back to some old idea, turn it over in my head, but seldom have the time to figure out what is wrong because I just thought of 3 more ideas. For those of you who have trouble coming up with ideas, I assure you it is more of a curse than a blessing.

Oh, I know what I should be doing. If any of you listen to Jason Calacanis’ “This Week in Startups” podcast, you know also. Jason is a pretty smart ass guy. He preaches every week to people with ideas that “Ideas ain’t shit”. Completely worthless if either; a) You have no way to execute, or b) Nobody else want its. B being the primary issue as A can be solved. I can handle A, it’s B that I have trouble with. What I should be doing with an idea is floating it out before I do anything. Just to see if anybody gives a shit, before I waste another weekend.

But I got this idea, about how to help people float ideas without spending any time on them. I think I will spend next weekend putting something together on this…

Take our Facebook Ads module for example.

First we add to what we already know by scouring the web collecting every single method, tip, example, training product, video, pitfall, success and shortcut we can find, running down every rabbit hole and dead-end for weeks. I have personally watched hours of video miss-information, some even suggesting techniques that will not only fail, but probably get you kicked off of Facebook entirely. Then, my partners and I go through all of the collected information with our entrepreneur’s hats on (yes, we are all actually entrepreneurs first). We cull out the out-of-date and just plain bad information to distill the best information for business success.

We develop and add our own implementation strategy layers (lot’s of arguments here til we reach consensus). Then we test every strategy and step to make sure they work as intended and absolutely better than anything else out there.

Once the data passes these tests to every partners’ satisfaction, we assemble it into a step-by-step comprehensive plan that anyone can understand and lay it all down in a professional video track.

The result of these hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and tears? About an hour of video we believe to be the world’s best training on Facebook Ads for Business.

BTW, that’s ONE module, we have over 30 in our training system.

So for the guy who asked me how our training is different from him just watching YouTube videos on the topics, now you know.

I typically start my presentations or speaking engagements by asking who in the room has a social profile of any kind. At the beginning of the year, maybe 10% raised their hands; by the end of the year it was more like 90%. So it is time for those of us in Social Media to finally, and thankfully, shift gears. I am already re-working my January presentations to focus on the Hows; How you use the tools to grow your business.

I am striking the phrase “So what is Facebook?” from my vocabulary. I am also planning to pull back significantly on my use of the phrase “Why should you be on Facebook?” and introducing the phrase “How do I capitalize on Facebook?”. If you somehow missed the news, you can only blame yourself as there were at least a million events last year on the subject of what and why… and that was just in my hometown.

Maybe I’m naive, but I’m sick of the economic doldrums, and I refuse to participate anymore. Apparently, so is everyone else I talk to. 2010 was not a bad year… but it could have been so much better. My plan is to move into 2011 convinced that it will be a kick-ass year, hopefully for everybody, but definitely for those in my space. So if you see me out-and-about, and you feel the urge to tell me that 2011 will be no better than 2010… don’t… or I just might punch you in the nose.

I am sure most of you know Phillip, at least if you are in the Social Media space. If not, you have been living under a rock. Phillip’s training sessions always sell out and his Social Media Dojo program is amazing. He’s pretty intense in his presentations, but I can tell you he is holding back. In person, this dude is like a pack of lit firecrackers balancing on top of a spinning top. I chatted with Phillip for about two hours about his ideas for the future and kept having to remind myself to close my mouth.

Phillip is putting together something big. I can’t really talk in details yet, but you will freak when you see his vision realized. I am humbled, shocked and very appreciative that he has asked me to be a part of it. Now I have to prepare myself for the g-forces I am going to experience just trying to hang on to his coat-tail.

Stay tuned…

We promoted this annual event exclusively via social media and it sold out 2 weeks before the event date. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it was free. Small business owners and entrepreneurs descended upon the Marriott Westshore for what we hoped would be a good use of their time. Fortunately, it looks like we pulled it off. I was the emcee and after getting everybody situated, I introduced Paul Brooks a fellow Score volunteer who gave a very nice talk on getting your business “unstuck”. This was followed by my moderating a panel of Score volunteers with audience submitted questions. Talk about being put on the spot! Bill Wright, Yanina Rosario, Linda Philips and Kit Werremeyer almost seemed like they had rehearsed their impromptu answers. What I thought might be a disaster, turned out perfectly.

After the panel discussion we all took a coffee break and split the main room into two workshop rooms. While a third of the attendees went on the get their counseling sessions, Kit and I each gave presentations to the other two-thirds and then we repeated them. Kit’s presentation was on Business Planning and mine was on Social media. I have some video of it here. The video is mostly of me… but hey it’s my blog.

Anyway, we sent out a Post Event Email Survey, and even though we are still getting responses, I wanted to share some of the feedback received so far:

In response to the question “What is your overall level of satisfaction with this event?” 100% of attendees said “Very satisfied”, our top answer.

While Kit received great feedback for his presentation, again since it is my blog, I will share with you the comments submitted about my presentation on Social Media Marketing (Kit needs to start his own blog):

“Wow. This is what I came for and all I can say is, Wow. I knew I was going to have to become involved in social media, but this opened my eyes to the subject in a way I had not considered at all. I am not even close to digesting all of it yet and I considered myself a pretty savvy internet user going in. Not to mention that Steve is one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard and was SO informative on this subject. I’d gladly sit through this presentation again!”

“Very interesting, first time I have really had an understanding of what social media is and how it works.”

“Steve’s presentation was exceptionally helpful and clarified many questions that I had about the various social media sites. Knowledgeable and entertaining all rolled into one! He is a master public speaker – born to entertain!”

“He was amazing”

“Perfect for what I was looking for. A great insight as to where to start. Steve also put in perspective a few somewhat “myths”. Great presentation.”

“I am interested in taking the 3 hour presentation he is offering next week.”

“Learned many things I want to implement.”

“Excellent and very interesting”

Before my head gets too big, we did have one negative issue mentioned by a few people: “It was too cold!”.

On behalf of the three local chapters of Score, I want to thank everyone for a great event, we all look forward to doing it again soon.

Most of you know I am a SCORE volunteer counselor, I seem to be the one who can’t say no. I am Chairman of the IT Committee as well as a member of several others, and now I really bit off a chunk. SCORE National has asked me to lead a team of 40 nationwide volunteers to thrash the new iSCORE web portal through its development. By thrash, I mean thoroughly test. It was determined that this is only really a 10 person undertaking, but when you consider that the testers are volunteers, you have to multiply by 4. This is a really big deal for SCORE. When you consider that they have close to 400 chapters and 12,000 volunteers, that’s a lot of cats to herd. Right now SCORE’s system is really antiquated, and each chapter has it’s own website. iSCORE will be a massive undertaking; not only will the main www.score.org site be completely re-vamped, but all of the chapter sites will be absorbed into this main portal. SCORE also serves two masters…we have clients seeking counseling and workshops who need to be able to navigate the portal, as well as 12,000 volunteers who need to access the system backend to log their activities and counseling sessions and manage workshops. By the way, neither of these two groups are particularly tech savvy, so I think testing is going to be a focal point of the project. I’ll keep you posted as we progress.

Also related to SCORE, I will be emceeing, Panel moderating and presenting at our biggest event to date. The SCORE/American Express Speed Counseling event in Tampa on September 14th. We are expecting 150 small business owners to take advantage of this free event. You can get more info on our calendar page at www.tampascore.org.

Lastly, I am working out the details for my own big event which is Internet Marketing for CEO’s. This will be an all day seminar event that will travel around the state starting in Tampa. I can tell you, social media research is a real challenge these days, just when you think you got it, it all changes again. I plan to do this event once a month and I will guarantee you that by the third one, my material will be out of date and I will have to redo it all. But what an exciting topic.

That’s all for now, other than a shameless plug: If you hear of anyone needing a speaker or emcee for an event, please give them my name.

Steve

Plan Describe your audience and define the purpose of your talk.

Prepare Establish a positive mindset and prepare the structure and timing of your presentation.

Practice Review your content, rehearse and get feedback on your presentation, and build enthusiasm and confidence to present.

Present Own your subject and build rapport with the audience to hold their attention and project the value of your message.

Plan

• Describe your audience as it relates to the topic—their knowledge and experience, their needs, wants, and goals. Ask yourself, “What does my audience know about this topic?”
• Define the purpose of your presentation as it relates to the outcome you seek. Is your intention to inform? Persuade? Motivate? Teach? When you clarify your purpose, you will more easily hit your target.
• Plan the content of your presentation around your purpose and your audience’s interest and level of understanding. Use words and phrases common to your audience, and focus on your purpose.

Prepare

• Establish a positive mindset by valuing your message. Ask yourself, “Why is this message important to me?”
• Structure your presentation by centering it on a message with key points that you can back up with evidence.
• Prepare an attention-getting opening. Use a question, make a startling statement, or relate a relevant incident to elicit the audience’s interest. The opening makes up 5 to 10 percent of your presentation.
• Determine the key ideas of your message and back them up with evidence such as statistics, testimonials, demonstrations, and analogies. Make sure that the key ideas all support a coherent message. Remember that an audience can only remember 4 to 6 different points, so choose your key ideas carefully. This should make up 80 to 85 percent of your presentation.
• Prepare a memorable close that supports your purpose and creates a lasting impression. You can close by summarizing or restating the message or by throwing down a challenge to your audience. A close that relates back to your opening can also be effective. Whatever you choose for your close, be sure you tell your audience what action you want them to perform. The close should make up 5 to10 percent of your presentation.

Practice

Practice your presentation in front of a small audience or a colleague, and ask for feedback on the content and style of your presentation. Things to consider:

• Is your message clear?
• Does your evidence support your key points?
• Are your graphics and illustrations clear, appealing, and relevant to the topic?
• Are you talking in terms of your audience’s interest?
• Is your close memorable?
• Did you achieve your intended results?
• Consider videotaping yourself rehearsing, and then review the videotape for distracting mannerisms and other signs of nervousness. Remember that the best cure for nervousness is confidence, and that confidence comes with practice.
• If possible, rehearse multiple times, trying out new ideas and new techniques for delivering the material. Choose the techniques that you are most comfortable with.
• Rehearse the timing of your presentation to be sure that it falls within your time limits. Be sure to allow time for questions, if it’s appropriate.

Present

• Assume the attitude of a professional in delivering presentations. A PRO views presenting as a Privilege, a Responsibility, and an Opportunity.
• Make a positive first impression. If possible, establish eye contact with your audience. Be yourself and relax.
• When speaking, be natural. Speak in a heightened conversational tone. Slow down and emphasize important points, and pause before and after key points to set them apart.
• Be sincere and build rapport with your audience. Involve them in the presentation. Ask your audience questions to be sure that they’re following you. If appropriate, get feedback from them after the presentation, and use this feedback to make your next presentation even better.

Question-and-answer sessions Question-and-answer sessions present a unique set of challenges, but they also offer the opportunity for you to clarify your message and reinforce your key points. Questions also get resistance out in the open and allow you to deal with it. Here are some tips for handling questions during a presentation:

• Plan for questions and answers by writing down questions you expect from the audience.
• State in advance whether you will take questions during the presentation or at the end. If you are taking questions during the presentation, be sure not to get sidetracked. If a question takes you off track or is of interest to only a few members of your audience, deal with it at the end instead.
• At the beginning of your question period, state how much time you have for questions, and then ask for the first question. If no one has any questions, suggest one yourself. You could also consider planting someone in the audience to ask the first question.
• Repeat questions so that everyone can hear them. Rephrase the question if necessary. If you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s best to be honest. Try to find some way to follow up with the person asking the question to get an answer to them.
• End the question period by restating your summary, close, or the action you want your audience to take.