Friday, February 08, 2008

Hey, I've Heard of That Guy!

I'm catching up on some podcasts that I downloaded some time ago. I'm particularly enjoying them now as I can listen to them and feel like I'm kind of working (most are business-oriented) while I am walking up and down the hallway trying to soothe a fussy baby (not that that happens very often at all).

So today I was listening to a "Marketing Monday" podcast from back in September 2007. The host, Dean Jackson, interviewed my friend Scott Ginsberg, the Approachability/Nametag Guy.

Yes, I already wrote about Scott this week, but you take your inspirations when they knock or the universe thinks you're being ungrateful.

During the interview they were talking about being "that guy" (short for "that guy who reminds everybody of nobody else"). In this case, it's meant in the positive sense and as Scott put it, it really boils down to the answer to two questions:

  1. What are you known for?
  2. What are you known as?
If nine out of ten of your customers/colleagues/friends answer in a similar way, then you are well on your way to being "that guy". Let's face it, if we can stand out in other people's minds for some good aspect of ourselves, then it can't help but to make us more successful in our lives, both inside and outside of work.

Now the little surprise I had happened about 36 minutes into the podcast (actually 36 minutes and 43 seconds, but who's counting?). All of a sudden I heard Scott use my name. He was quoting one of the concepts from my website with regards to the difference between having a website and having a web presence. Very cool.

I highly recommend that you check out the podcast, even though it's a little dated now (Scott mentions one of the projects that he'd been working on for a while, Nametag.tv, which has since launched -- another cool thing to check out). There's lots of good stuff about the many benefits of approachability, including a great riff on why a handwritten nametag is better than one of those fancy engraved ones that some people wear.

So, what was a good podcast that you've listened to recently?

1 comment:

hellomynameisscott said...

Hey, I learned everything from you ;)