I finally got a Amazon Kindle and I love the “My Clippings” feature which lets you select certain text and save it for reviewing later. The first book I read was Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin and wanted to share a couple of excerpts that particularly stuck out to me.

Being in my position, especially at such a young age, will present a constant battle with just how far to push the envelope of new ideas, when to fight for what you believe in, and how to convince complacent people to get on board.

With that said, I thought I would leave some of my superiors and colleagues a couple of excerpts from Linchpin before I wear them out and they stick me in the basement.

• An artist’s job is to change us. When you have a boss, your job is to please the boss, not change her. It’s okay to have someone you work for, someone who watches over you, someone who pays you. But the moment you treat that person like a boss, like someone in charge of your movements and output, you are a cog, not an artist.

• When you hire a vice president for business development, it’s a given that he’s not going to be your errand boy. You’re not paying all this money for someone who will merely go down a checklist you’ve created and who will ask you before making nay decisions. Of course not. It’s his job to innovate, to create new opportunities, to connect with hard-to-reach people, and to follow the long lien on the way to success.
  

Running a bail bond company seems pretty juvenile compared to some of the things I want to accomplish throughout my working career but being a bail bondsman in Columbia, Missouri has taught me a few valuable lessons in life I wouldn’t trade for $1mm…. unless it was cash.

1.) How to read people

I get a phone call at 3:00am for a possession of controlled substance and a possession of paraphernalia. In Boone County this is a $5,000 bond. The person on the other line could be the worried sister of someone who just made a honest mistake tossing a loose Adderall in their purse out of the prescription bottle or the person could be a crack head trying to get their crack head friend out of jail before they start feigning again.

I can ask all the questions I want but no says they have to tell me the truth. When I ask questions I am not looking for an answer as much as I am looking for a reaction. Are you lying to me or are you being truthful? Making the wrong assumption could cost me $5,000 in this case. I can’t read their facial expressions, I can’t see what they look like, I can’t run a credit check. I essentially have to make a decision on a $5,000 loan from a 5-minute phone call.

No one ever taught me how to determine if someone is a crack head or a good human being I just learned it being a bail bondsman.

2.) How to relate to people

I get to talk to a lot of unique people. I may not bond everyone out that calls me but the weirdos and yahoos do occasionally call my phone. Not everyone I meet is bad either. I just get a very diverse group of callers. Everyone from your typical thug, to his baby moma, to the scared 18 year old student who just got a DWI, to that scared 18 year old’s parent who wants to be sure I am not some weirdo bondsman like they see on TV whom they looked up online and are about to give their credit card information to.

Relating and talking to each one of these people all require a different tone, a different personality, and a different script. All want to hear something different. Some want you to curse the police while others want you to calm them down and tell them how it’s really not that big of a deal. I read people quickly and if the bond is one I want to write I will bring myself to their level to relate to them and tell them what they want to hear. I don’t lie to them. I just relate to them; however unique they may be.

No one ever taught me how to relate to different people and talk to them on their level I just learned it being a bail bondsman.

3.) How to deal with bureaucracy

Anyone that has dealt with our countries criminal court system knows how big of a headache it can be. Not only is it slow and inefficient but its not a perfect system. It is not even close to a perfect system.

I have had to deal with a judge who did not know the law and as a result entered a final forfeiture and handed me a $15,000 bill. Dealing with judges is a difficult thing. Since they are there to interpret the law many of them feel as though they can essentially write the law. Do I shove statues in their face and prove them wrong? Damaging their ego and inevitably risking mistreatment until the day they resign. Or do I just pay the $15,000 bill and write it off as a business expense?

There really is no right answer to this. The confines of bureaucracy aren’t meant to confine the ones who actually make the rules. Its only meant to confine the lowly bail bondsman who has to play by the judges rules. However incorrect they may be.

No one ever taught me how to deal with egotistical judges and their asinine rulings I just learned it being a bail bondsman.

4.) How to deal with people

If you are around me on a daily basis you have seen and heard the different ways I deal with different people. This is not entirely the same as relating to people but more so getting your point across to people and also getting them to do what you want.

Some people go to court because they will always go to court, some people go to court because they don’t want you to call their parents and some people only go to court because you threatened to kick their door down during a Thanksgiving meal with their entire family as witnesses. Whatever their motivation is I have to first read people quickly and find out what I need to say or do ensure that they go to court. Some people I just need to write the date down on a business card and others I have to pull out all the tricks. There is no magic trick or secret formula. It is different for everyone.

No one ever taught me how to influence people to get them to do what I want I just learned it being a bail bondsman.

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All of these valuable lessons and skills I learned being a bail bondsman have made me into who I am today.

Some people may look down upon on the bail bond profession but the lessons learned answering 3:00am phone calls from crack heads prepared me far better for life and the working world than my $80k textbook university education.

**Shout out to my father for successfully getting through his first year as a new St. Louis bail bonds company with zero forfeitures.

You can find out more about Bryan Rahn and join in the discussion over on his blog at www.lifeintheblue.com.

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http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/company-profile.html?id=200900350

Number 35 on the Inc 500 List – Diapers.com. I think this company could relate to the branding conversations we have been having.  Before you spend much time on the site, you should just go to the home page and write down your very first impressions: Diapers.com

• What does this site provide?
• Who is their target audience?
• What is the UVP of this site?

When I first saw the site on the Inc list, I thought, “I remember seeing them around online before. Do they really do that much business only selling diapers? But within just a few seconds of being on the site I can tell they provide all kinds of baby gear. The site feels very “soft” and friendly. Inviting and welcoming. From what I can gather, the target market of diapers.com is people with not a lot of spare time who are willing to pay well above Wal Mart prices for relatively simple baby gear. It seems to me like their UVP is that they can get you items fast. It is necessary that their items ship quickly, and they arrive within one day. Shipping is free over $49 or else it is $10.
So, I would pose the following questions –

1. Is diapers.com brandable?
2. Have they successfully branded themselves?
3. How does this relate to branding any of our sites?

In my opinion, yes, they have a brandable name. It doesn’t matter that they sell way more than diapers, but diapers.com is enough to let you know this is a site for baby gear. I think people buy from diapers.com because it is easy. We think that is a reason why a lot of people work with us, to avoid the red tape. It doesn’t really matter that they don’t just sell diapers. If people buy because of benefits, then the only real benefit of diapers.com is that they do not have to go to the store. This is similar to the benefit we provide, that they don’t have to go to a local lender, who may be less experienced.

It seems that diapers.com figured out that what people want the  most is to be able to avoid having to go to the store to buy baby gear, even at lower prices. We need to figure out what people want the most from us.

Do they want:

• specialists?
• ease?
• quickness?
• lowest cost?

A lot of people have avoided answering these questions due to the famous ‘boxes’ where we can try to catch all different kinds of people who want different things. But I think for actually ‘branding’ we have to have 1 simple answer to the question “Why do people want to use us?”  We have to find what the single thing potential buyers are most hung up, nervous or apprehensive about, and then be the answer to that problem. Much like diapers.com is the answer to people who don’t want to go to the store problem.

I still have those companies but I have since moved on to bigger and better things. I guess my greatest qualm was that I was operating on a local level. Not that operating on a local level is a bad thing it just greatly narrows your scope and you can only achieve so much. These achievements may be great by some peoples standards but come no where near my definition of success.

I have since graduated college after 5 arduous years with  financial planning and business degrees that I have since wrote off as virtually useless. The vast majority of my knowledge wasn’t obtained in a jam packed lecture hall writing verbatim what Joel Poor had to tell me about marketing in between his dumb jokes used only to keep us awake and keep peoples minds off of how bad of a professor he truly was.

I learned everything the old fashioned way by digging in, making mistakes and learning every step of the way. I learned by seeking out the best people in fields and industry’s I had interest in and asking them any and every question I could think of just soaking it all and conspiring ways that I could do it better. I learned by observing, asking, and reading blogs by some of my favorites Mark Cuban, Bruce Clay, Neil Patel, Andy Liu, and Guy Kawasaki.

I sit here now with an incredible opportunity at my fingertips spearheading the business end of a couple of potentially large and indsutry changing web properties backed by the best team I think anyone could put together. Follow me as I embark on this adventure en route to creating something bigger than myself.