Back during my magazine editor days I had an opportunity to lead a hardworking staff and dreamed of taking the publication to new heights. As things turned out, I changed entrepreneurial direction but have never forgotten the vision I had for leading my editorial, production, circulation sales and marketing teams.  A recent email conversation with my sister reminded me of this vision and although I’m not looking for a job, I think it’s still the kind of company that both my sister and I would love work at. It’s also one we’re beginning to think doesn’t exist, but we keep hope alive.

Our Corporate Culture

We understand that human capital can make or break a company and consider our people our most valuable asset. We hire skilled, qualified and experienced staff and build a corporate culture around them that promotes excellence, leadership and teamwork. By doing so we build a staff that will perform and deliver sustainable results. Read the rest of this entry »

THE TIN MAN is my custom, salvaged-from-junkyard-parts, hand-restored, hybrid cruiser bicycle. Upon finding his assortment of discarded parts in various junkyards, I cleaned him up, reconditioned the bearings and threw in a few new parts that couldn’t be salvaged and  created my favorite TCS Custom Cruiser to date.

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SIX… count ‘em… SIX, ladies and gentlemen, SIX Super Bowl Rings!

I am in celebration and I am ready for some football!

On this first day of the 2009 NFL season – in honor of the CURRENT Super Bowl Champions – the most honored Pittsburgh Steelers – let the NFL season begin!

Thanks for indulging me. I just had to make that announcement. As usual, it’s been a long – football-less – summer. Don’t get me wrong, I really like most sports and never seem to get enough… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s September. I am ready for some football! And you should buy a Steelers fan a gift! That’s right, every September – particularly around the 13th, but any time during the month is good - you should buy a Steelers fan a gift. This is  a new national holiday, started this year at the start of the 2009/2010 NFL season by yours truly. It honors the Steelers’ record-setting SIX Super Bowl Championships! (And they are reigning NFL Champions at date of this original post!)

If you don’t know a Steelers fan – or don’t know one you like – buy some Steelers stuff anyway and send it to P.O. Box 7427, Atlanta, Ga 30357 and a deserving Steelers fan will use it, wear it, display it and otherwise take the appropriate pride in ownership. Thanking you all in advance

PEACE.
Rick

Some gift suggestions below. Our job is to make it as easy for you as possible. Oh… The suggested size is Large or X-Large. (click a pic for details) Read the rest of this entry »

Computer Love is like reading and writing – you just gotta know how to do it to survive! It took me a couple of years to get the whole alphabet, grammar, sentence structure, comprehension thing down, but that was a couple of grade school years well spent! Learning some Computer Love is no different, get the ABCs of it now and it’ll serve you for a lifetime. Look at it from this perspective… Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an entrepreneurial saying that “nothing happens until something is sold,” meaning that we’re all in the business of selling, whether we like it or not. But on the other hand, there’s the debatable fact that, “everybody hates a salesman.” At least I do - although ‘hate’ might be a little strong.

But you know what I mean. If there’s one person that we – the otherwise polite - can all excuse being rude to, it’s the random salesperson. We’ve all hung up on at least one. Being on the SOLD end of selling isn’t a favorite feeling for most of us. Whether we have the money to spend or not. (even more-so when we don’t!) And that doesn’t bode well if you’re convinced that selling is survival.

Here’s how I’ve seen it happen with SELLING speakers, but it’s the same with coaches, consultants, and all you other information marketers. 

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In my speaker coaching business I have a two-page document that spells out the rules of the road. It defines my professional relationship with the speaker, outlines our objectives, sets policy and assigns accountability. It’s brief but detailed, pretty serious and well thought out based on my experiences inside of coaching relationships.

However, upon seeing it a number of speakers have referred to it as ‘strict’ or ‘hard.’ I’m sure I’ve even discouraged a few prospective professional relationships based on similar reactions. The truth is, I’m not nearly that strict or hard when it comes to the real relationship and my usual response is, “The rules only apply if being a nice guy isn’t working.”

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Now that the King of Pop is dead, I’ve already heard it said that he is probably worth more dead than he is alive. So here’s my plan to make a fortune on Mike’s unreleased music that is pointed to as being one of the well-springs of his future wealth. Since I don’t have any access to that music, the rest of you are welcome to take my idea and run with it.

Here’s the plan…

With this plan, Mike would retain his throne with the biggest selling anthology of posthumously released music ever. I’d compile every unreleased song, take and snippet I could find and arrange it into 5 compilations to be titled MJ1 through MJ5. (The cool part is I’d use the same lettering for the titles that they used back in the day for the original J5 (that’s ‘Jackson 5’ for you youngsters.).

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As a coach and agent to speakers I’ve worked with up to 50 speakers at a time, but now work with a much smaller group and enjoy it much more. We work together at a grass-roots level and get a lot accomplished.  I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the speaking industry so I can ‘give wise counsel’ and there’s so much crap out there leading professional orators astray I don’t often make recommendations. I especially avoid the ‘how to make big bucks…’ series of hype that we’ve all fallen victim to at least once at some level or another. I do, however, highly recommend SpeakerNet News.

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Although I don’t think I’m cut out to be a full-time parent, I’m starting to REALLY like kids. Two in particular. My daughter Nikki (Ladybug) and my nephew LJ (who I think looks just like me when I was his age.) As my sister Alesia and I say “Nick and LJ can run with us anytime!”

They’re both really smart, really fun, absolutely fearless and pretty darned cool! Loved hangin’ with you guys in Datona Beach last summer. Lookin’ forward to Ft. Lauderdale this summer.

So, as we were hangin’ out last week looking for something to do – besides look at the idiot box or go out in the 100 degree heat – I decided to have them act out some characters in a mock interview.

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