Why Write?

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity, a guide that shares my story of interviewing small business owners in Austin, Texas, and a guide to help anyone anywhere interested in doing a similar project in their own local community. This is a chapter on why blogging/writing is key to making the most of the project.

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Why Write?

Grammar is to writer what anatomy is to a sculptor, or the scales to a musician. You may loathe it, it may bore you, but nothing will replace it, and once mastered, it will support you like a rock. — -B.J Chute.

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Okay, first thing, we are not talking about grammar, not entirely. Yeah, it will come in handy later, but let me draw a bit from the quote above.

Writing is a ‘flesher’ of thoughts. It brings order to things said, and is one of the greatest skills you can develop. Anything that has to be put into writing challenges the writer to think carefully — he has to put one word after the other to make a point — and brings out what’s not necessarily clear.

Why not just say it, you may ask? Well, you could, but the spoken word unless written down gets taken up by the air, and though could be collected in the memory, in time the memory fades. So to rely on it is to leave you scratching your head when it comes time to recollect it for use. Herein comes the point of this saying: A short pencil is better than a long memory.

But in saying this, for our purposes here, I do mean excellent writing. I mean a decent record of your thoughts that others can read and see what you mean, and at this point mistakes are allowed. This is why I do not stress grammar, but the ability to start practicing now.

Marco Polo

Okay, let’s look back a little. Let’s see why you know Marco Polo, or the Marco Polo sheep:

Growing up as a kid, I heard a bit of the Marco Polo sheep but didn’t quite understand why the sheep was so named. Later in life, I read a piece somewhere of Marco Polo, and why he is renowned worldwide for his documentation of his travels to Asia, and how his book — “The Travels Of Marco Polo”— was Europe’s introduction to Central Asia and China.
But wait, was he the first, or was he the most knowledgeable about that region of the world, at the time? Enter Wikipedia:

Marco Polo was not the first European to reach China (see Europeans in Medieval China), but he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers. There is a substantial literature based on Polo’s writings; he also influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map. — Wikipedia

There, is the power of the pen, which is said to be mightier than the sword. Well, in our day, it will be punching the keyboard, right?
Yet you may say to me, “Kingston, nah, I am not Marco Polo, I am not that big.” Well, we all have to start somewhere, right? We all can’t be great from the outset. We have to start where we are, though; use what we have, build a muscle for whatever skill we desire, and see what opportunities come our way to use it. I am sure Marco started writing, or had a great appreciation for it at a much earlier time before he penned the famous book. Plus, his expedition to Central China or Asia, in a large sense, was a project, too.

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What About This Project?

In this case of a project, how useful is writing? One, it’s a way of creating a story for yourself while you go about the project. There are many things that will happen during the project, and not recording it means a lot is lost along the way. I see value in all things, and so the chance to record my discoveries, conversations, observations, and even mistakes, gives me a record to look back on. This record is a store of things to learn from, things to improve on, and proof that this actually happened.

Two, you need a platform. This is why I talk about starting a blog. When you start a project like this one, with the few people you may share it with or who will know about it ( or even the professionals you end up interviewing), they will like to follow your progress, and reading is how they do that.

So in that sense, reading is how they consume what you are creating. Reading, then, is consumption. It’s like eating, and proper eating demands that food be served on a plate. Your project is a service you are rendering to others. Serve it on plate, a platform — which is simply a “form” of “plate,” and writing is the tool you use to put it on that platform.

This very book you are reading itself is a platform. There has to be a ground upon which I share my story and the lessons. The story is my ground, and the book is my writing pad, my platform, and I typed the words onto the “plate.”
Three, writing on a platform like a blog, sets you up to share your findings. The project will lead you to discoveries, not only about your neighborhood, people, or situations, but your own self. Make sure you note those. And when you will like to share some of these, a blog gives you a tool with share buttons ( Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and others) to easily distribute it.

Also, the more you write, do projects, and share your thoughts, the more the right people will come to you. The reason people are hesitant to come to connect with others is a lack of information. Lack of information is like walking in the dark. Few people like that. Knowledge is light, and the more you share, the more people know about you, and makes it easy for others to decide how to connect to you. This is how writing improves your chances of getting where you want to get by connecting you to the right people.
The president of the United States, president Barack Obama, is a writer. I have heard stories here and there about how he sometimes writes his own speeches. How does being a writer help him? Well, in a few key ways.
I’m sure some folks read his books — “Dreams From My Father” and “ The Audacity Of Hope” — especially during his first campaign for president, and saw his thinking process. They checked if they agreed with him or not on most issues at play. For those who did, they easily voted for him. That — writing, someway, somehow, helped pave the way for his election. It supported him and connected him to the right people.

So it is with all of us. Your ability to gather your thoughts, package it, and use it to make a point is a rare skill. Not everyone can do that. But you can start small, and with a project that you enjoy, and can write all about it. In time, you’ll get better.

Even the great God Himself who created all things, when He sought to record His thoughts, He put it in a book for men to read. This is how we know His will. 

End Of Sample

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This is a chapter on why blogging/writing is key to making the most of the project. For free updates and sample chapters as I build the book, go here.

7 Steps To A Local Interview Project

1. Get Ready, Get Clear
   

Get ready by deciding what you are interested, or what you’d like to learn about — this is key because almost all of your time on earth should be spent harnessing your gifts and talents, and what interests you are clues to it. After this, figure out if there are people already in your neighborhood/ or close to you who are already doing something similar or the same thing. If not turn the tables and pick a few worthy folks you are not already friends with and interview them on their thoughts on something you are passionate about.

A good example will be interviewing people about my desire for a local “little or no sugar” bakery/pastry shop. An interview like this validates the idea and gets people thinking about it.

One of my questions will be this: If a shop like that existed in Austin, would you come check it out? If they say “yes,” I would go on to keep them in mind if I end up doing something about my desire. My next question would be this: Okay, this is not a promise, but if I end up starting something like that would mind that I let you know?
Based on the response I get, this gives me a chance to get peoples opinion and a decent list of people to contact if I were to go through with it. Anything is possible.

Why a “little sugar or no sugar pastry shop”? Well, I love pastries but dislike how almost the pastry shops I go to have very little options for people like me, so I have thought about starting a shop like that in Austin. You could have a similar desire, or one entirely different, but starting a conversation about it can lead to interesting results.

But back to the scenario where you have people in your neighborhood who are already doing something you want to learn about. This was my case with small business. Start with them.

How do you reach them, though, and upon what grounds?
This is where you build a platform. When I say a platform, I mean creating a basis for why you would like to interview them.

This was my platform: To hear and document the stories of small business owners in Austin, Texas. To learn from it myself, share it with others — on my blog (I talk about that below) and online, and possibly be of help in one way or another.

This is a sensible platform and it’s win-win — I want to learn, provide value, help, and share the lessons. With this sort of clarity, you can start a conversation with almost anyone.

2. Go

Now, it’s time to go. With you blog set up, a clear platform in mind, and a few useful tools, you all set to get out there in your local community and talk to people.

I assume that you do know your local community fairly well, or at least know where to find people. With this fair understanding of your local community, or where the pros you’d like interview hang out, decide how you’d like to contact them. Will you make contact in person, via phone, or via email? 

I chose in person by walking up to the shops directly and introducing myself and sharing the purpose of my project — -it’s more weighty, and shows seriousness.

Now, go out and meet them.

3. Connect

Whether you contact your prospects — the people you’d like to interview — in person, by email, or by phone, on your first encounter present your idea or grounds for why you’d like to interview them. In other words, your reason for connection.
This again goes back to the platform you set in step 1.

An example, in person: Hi, my name is Kingston, and I’m currently doing a 21-Day project of interviewing small business owners in Austin about their journeys as business owners and what makes them unique. The hope is to document it, share it on my blog and online, and learn from it myself. Would you have 20–30 minutes to share your story with me?
With this mini presentation, most business will ask a few questions to get to know, or check out your blog, and try to find a good time and date to sit with you. That’s the appointment setting time.

After this, you’ll decide on a date and time that works for you both. But generally, set appointments on what works for your subject and work around their time.

4. Firm Up

With an appointment set, consider it to be tentative, not set in stone. Why? That gives you a reason to make sure it happens. This is precious time, not only to you but to the business owner/ or professional, and making sure it happens is good use of time on both ends. So confirm it.
Confirm appointments via email and phone. Canceled interviews don’t happen, and time is wasted in the process. Guard against it by confirming ahead of time.

5. Chat

Do the interview. Have a guide of sorts, one that’s loose yet shows the way. Use questions that are useful to the subject and gets them to share their story. Look for lesson points by asking good questions — what was difficult in starting your profession or business? What didn’t you anticipate? How did you overcome challenges. What will you like to teach others from your story?

An interview that focused on stories always makes for a good chat. Good for the subject, since they get to talk about their own stories; and you, as it gives you a chance to know them more, brings up lessons most people can learn from, and eases the atmosphere by making it more of a conversation than a stiff interview.

Note: Every interview should be recorded. I use my smartphone’s voice recorder and a lapel microphone.

6. Write/Inform

Package the experience into words and audio. With the interview done, you not only now have an interview on record, but a story to tell as well. 

How? With each owner, you went through a process of contacting them, setting the appointment, firming it up, and then doing the interview. All this took you through some steps, emotions, encounters, even mistakes, and all this is a story you now have. Write about it.

What’s more, every interview you do will have a story behind it. So with every interview you have writing material in the form of the by-product. This is what you practice your writing with, and what gets posted on your blog.

So write about it on your blog and upload the interview to your blog and share it with others — your friends, family, online friends, and others you may know. Also inform your subject — the professional you interviewed — of the upload, and begin sharing it on social media, if you want.

7. Repeat

Rinse and repeat it for your next interview. Learn from the first one, prepare for the second one, and do it again.

Value Of Local Interview Projects

This is part of an email course I am building: Thoughts welcome.
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Let me start with a hypo a hypo example: Let’s say you want to build a school for low income children in your community. Sure you know a few people in your community. But you don’t have much money, and not many significant relationships to help you make it a reality. Where do you start?

You must at least get the idea out there, right? Why? Because you can’t do it alone. So a good way of giving yourself a chance to succeed is to start a conversation about it among people who know something about what you want to do, care about it, and know other people, and could help.

Is it a bad idea, then, to start an interview project with these people about what you want to do and how it could be useful to them? Can you discuss with them what your plans are and how you may need their help, and what they will get out of it? Can you put it in win-win terms, the conversation? And to make it more earnest, is it a good use of your time, their time, and for results if you put it into a project with a defined goal and a definite time frame?

Yet you cannot do this with your current range of relationships you have, if the project is sizable enough? This is where you will have to step outside of your comfort zone and approach people you do not have prior relationships with but know have knowledge and resources that could be useful to you. So in a sense, go out and talk to strangers. So it is with interview projects, and that’s the value of this course: People and communication skills that will come in handy for useful causes.

An interview project gives you an opportunity to pick up some valuable people and communication skills that is rarely taught at schools: stepping out of your comfort zone and engaging with others. What’s more, if you document your journey, you also strengthen you writing skill.

What else is an interview project good for?

If you were to start a project like I did (which was definitely not to build a school) and document your experience and share it online, here are a few things that you could come away with.

Initiative

It’s a show of initiative. This is good for all work positions. But if you were looking for work, this is a good notch on your resume. This doesn’t mean you should not look for work, but it gets you in a position to add to your skills besides a show of initiative, which almost all job ads require from applicants. What’s more? Write about it, document it, share it online, and when an employer were to ask, simply point them to your site (and you can get a site up in 10 minutes for free to use to do this). How many of the other job applicants can say that?

A Good Word

When your project is done, providing you conduct yourself well, and provide value to those you interviewed, they’ll likely speak well of you when you ask them to give you a recommendation on how you did your project. This is not to fake it, but when you go out there with a sincere desire to learn from others, add value to your community, learn from the experience, and possibly teach others by sharing it, you’ll definitely have a few people say a few good things about you when you need it.



     Find A Suitable Job

Looking for work? Why not turn the tables and interview employers instead. Rather than wait to get calls for interviews, why not go out and interview people who could hire you, or know others who could?
During one of my interviews — -the one with Mr. Matt Lacey — -at the end, he jokingly remarked on his desire to offer me an application to work with him. I didn't take the offer, but the reason he offered is not far-fetched. He saw my joy in talking with him, the value of my questions, and my initiative to do something like this. The same opportunity could be next door in your community, while you may be looking for work.

Discovery Opportunity

As the interviewer, the ball is in your hands, since you will be the one asking the questions: One of the questions you want to ask is what they are currently having a difficult time with. Out of 10 employers who answer this, one of them most probably will have a challenge that falls right in your wheelhouse of skills or desire, and you can offer your skills to the employer to help them solve it. You can do this after you have completed the project, or start a side gig to help them out.

Improve Your Writing Skills

I recently read in Basecamp’s book, Rework, on how they’ll recommend that business owners hire writers. Why? Life is all about communicating, and without effective communication, nothing will be done effectively. Copywriting, essays, books, even web design/programming is all language based, an ability to clearly and creatively get a point across. So write.
You may say, I’m not that good at it. Yeah, no one starts out excellently, but how do you build a skyscraper? A brick at a time, right? What about eating an elephant? A bite at a time? Okay, so is writing, as is walking, one step after another.
Also, as the saying goes, writing makes a man exact, and refines your thinking. So keep a daily journal of what happened. Few people can do this, and of those who can, few will take the trouble to: this separates you froma lot of people.

Startup Chance

Again, you’ll come across problems that some of the people you interview may be struggling with, and if you have the skills offer it to help them solve if for a fee. If you come across a problem, you can’t solve, see if you can find someone else more qualified than you are to help solve it. But probably more important than all of this is, if you find out that you will like to turn this into some sort of start-up, you can. Simply figure out how you can turn it into consistent revenue through more marketing or referrals.

Volunteer Spirit

Since you will not charge anyone anything for your time and effort, this demonstrates a good degree of a volunteer spirit — the ability to do something for another person for free. Who doesn’t like a person like that? Most employers want someone like that on their team, who can take something upon themselves without asking, and do it without asking for anything in return. Remember, almost all worthy professionals did many things for free when they first started out. Everyone would like someone like that for a friend, a coworker, or even a boss — A generous spirit is a great treasure.



       Relationships

If you do something like this, you’ll end up with relationships with people you did not know previously. Life is all about connecting, and most will come in handy later, if you genuinely set out to help them, and they in return.
Finally, this means you are giving something, and it’s more blessed to give than to receive. Give instead of receiving: Many are waiting for someone ( an employer) to give them a job, but you package a value and give it to employers instead.

Skill Gathering & Demonstration

Demonstrate some of the skills employers are looking for — -email writing, diligence, follow up, packaging ( in packaging the project), people skills, audacity, initiative, leadership, and others. This paves the way to easily show some of these skills and gather others while you are at it.
Since it may be your first, it will not go perfectly, but there’s always the opportunity rinse and repeat to for the next one.



        Take Advantage of Time

Most folks are left in the job-hunt routine for a month, 3 months, 9 months, sometimes years, and often are left without work for want of initiative. 21 days is less than 30 days, and definitely less than a year. So why take the 21 days (or less, if you will) and do something with it? It’s a win-win either way you look at it. It improves your value, exposes you to employers, gives you people to turn to for recommendation if you need it, and afterward you’ll have a better resume

      Where Do I Start?

An Important question: Where do I start, and how do I go about an interview project. My desire with this course is not only to do an interview project, but also to use it as a vehicle to explore more of what you love, and to help you get a clearer idea of what you want to do (if for some reason, that’s not already clear). To that end, first figure what you want to learn a lot about. Are there people in your local community already doing that? Start with folks in that industry.

For example, I wanted to learn about business, so I started with small business owners in my community. Get clear on yours and see how an interview project could help you learn a lot more about that and build relationships.

Sharing Some Tools

I stepped in this month to Host Our local Live Your Legend Meetup of creatives in Austin, Texas, and I shared some tools there that could help other people with their personal projects. 

This month's meeting had 3 people show up. We had Roy Hughes​, Kaylyn Morgan​, and myself. Both Roy and Kaylin are in the app building business and have a few apps in the app store.

A short list below.

1. For book launch, you can use www.booklaunch.io
    
2. For writing your book, you can use www.pressbooks.com, or www.scrivener.com
    
3. To edit your book, you can use www.grammarly.com
   
   
4. To sell your products right out of your website, you can use www.gumroad.com
   
   
5. To promote your work by sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, you can use www.sumome.com
   
   
6. To collect emails/sign ups on your website, to create a contact form that can be placed anywhere on your site, or check your site's heat maps so you know where folks are clicking the most, check out www.sumome.com
   
   
7. To create an automated series of emails that go out when someone signs up on your website, check out www.gumroad.com and www.mailchimp.com.
   
   
8. To sign online documents if you were to hire someone for a freelance gig or sign a document with a client check out www.docusign.com or www.rightsignature.com
   
   
9. To sell packages or products and still get the contact information of folks who buy from you, use www.gumroad.com. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and others do not give your that information.

After this we also took sometime to fine tune our thoughts on what our messages are for each of our projects and make it connect with the right people.

Individually, Roy is a musician and currently has songs on Soundcloud you can check out here: https://soundcloud.com/royestel

Kaylyn has a blog she co-runs with her daughter, a new mom, about the experience of new moms. You can check it out at www.mrsweetie.com and she is also fine-tuning her message for her lead blog “Awesome at any age.” It's focused on health and wellness.

As you already know, I am working on my upcoming book on how to start a small project right in your neighborhood that involves you learning from folks in your neighborhood who are already doing something you'd like to learn about. 

Thanks, everybody, and all the best.

PS: If you know of other tools that we could use, please let us know in the comments.

7 Things I learned From Writing My First Book

1. Begin With The End In Mind---Use A Book Cover, in 3D

When I set out to write the book/guide, I began with an outline of my potential reader's thought-flow. This thought-flow is simply what I expect readers to ask upon picking up the book. Obviously, their first encounter with the book will be with its cover and the title. Since the title is actually a call to action, it's grabby and the word “backyard” also makes it personal since virtually everyone has a backyard and can take advantage of this opportunity.

So upon picking up the book, readers will like to know what this backyard opportunity is. This is where I talk about my experience with my project, which I did right in my local community, which is my backyard if you will. The next question I think might come up is whether this project is for them and what can they get out of it, the benefits of it. So next I wrote out a short chapter on the benefits of doing a project and who exactly it's for. Based on that thought-flow, I began writing out the chapters: Introduction, the benefits, and etc.

2. Use An Outline For Chapters

I used an outline, or sorts, to write draw out a road map of where the book should go in content. Take a look here of what I wrote, in the beginning:

Table Of Contents

1. Introduction 
    
2. List
   
   
3. Who Is This For?
   
   
4. What Are The Benefits?
   
   
5. Getting Started
   
   
6. Nuts & Bolts
   
   
7. My Lessons And Why Other People Could And Should Do It
   
   
8. Technicals---how to introduce yourself, set an appointment, emails, follow-ups, interview, interview structure, survey, etc
   
   
9. My Daily Log
   
   
10. What All Of This Means
    
    
11. Why I need your help for review---If you would like to read the whole book and help me with feedback, send me an email here: acouplethings70@gmail.com.

With this rough outline, I I now have a map in mind and can simply follow it. I like to write with a finish line in my head, and seeing the table of contents laid out like that tells me the book is already finished. All I have to do now is flesh it out with value, the contents.

Update: The outline has since changed a bit, and rightly so, because you remember things to add to it and change to make it better, but the basic outline is what got me started. 

3. Write A Little Everyday

I'm sure you have heard of the saying that a little bit goes a long way, or a bite at a time eats an elephant. I applied the same thing to writing my book. I took each chapter, sat down and wrote it out . I didn't do this perfectly in the beginning, but I simply poured out my thoughts on to the paper and stepped back. 

At this point I am not worrying about how good my writing is, all that matters is that I have something sensible on paper. With that done, I set the ball rolling---I know I have a rough chapter down. In a few hours or the next day, I sit and rewrite it to make it clearer in language and add things I forgot or missed on the first write. This is how all of my chapters came together.

4. Always Think About How To Improve

Another thing I found useful during this whole process was thinking throughout the day about how to improve the content. I go throughout the day thinking about how readers will think of the book , and if I am answering all of their questions. I actually put myself in their shoes, and ask if I would get value out of reading my own book. If my mind says no, then I ask what I can do to correct that. 

 

Questions like this help:

1. Is my writing clear enough?
2. Can it be easily understood?
3. Am I using too many unclear words---I like to write with simple language that many people can understand.

This bring me directly to my next lesson: Take something to write with wherever you go.

5. Carry & Pen and Paper/Notepad With You At All Times

This lesson is not only for writers, but for all creative people. Why? You never know when an idea could hit. I know ideas could hit when I sit to write, but when I am out and about, when going about daily things, my mind takes in many things and with me thinking about my book, I come up with things that I could add or take out of my book. This is how I came up with the idea of launching my book in packages.

I came across this idea from reading a Nathan Barry post about the power of packages, and I found it clever. Nathan talks about how he himself heard it from Chris Guilleabeau, and applied in the sales of his products---the App Design Handbook, Designing Web Applications, and Authority.

But without thinking constantly about how to present my book or how to package, I may not have remembered that. And by carrying something to write with I was able to make a note to myself to do that when I get back home to my laptop.

6. Share Your Ideas With Others

Besides thinking and writing things down throughout the day, I also took the opportunity share my book with others. I would meet random people at the Starbucks where I usually go to write or at The Barnes & Noble Bookstore and discuss different things with them about my book.

How do I do this? If I notice someone reading a book or working on something similar, I would simply would introduce myself and ask a few minutes of them to help me think through something. 

An example was my meeting with a lawyer at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore a few weeks ago. We sat across from each other, and after a few minutes of working on my book,  I had a question about the cover I wanted to use.

I show him a picture of it on my laptop, and after sharing his thoughts with me on the cover, he pointed out a small issue with my title.

Initially,  I wrote the title so: Get To Know, Your Backyard Opportunity. I wrote it this way to mean "Get To Know," as a noun that meant your backyard opportunity. Obviously this didn't make sense. He pointed that out, and I took away the comma. 

See? Little things like that could change a whole lot. But I wouldn't have known if I didn't take the initiative to get this opinion on the cover I was working on.

        

       7. Learn From Others

This goes back to checking out Nathan Barry's Sales page on his website. I wanted to see how someone else had gone about theirs and learn from it. Not copy, but simply figure out the reasoning behind it, and see if  I can apply some of it to my own.

Keep in mind, though some people may claim original rights to an idea, no idea really is new. Ideas get recycled over and over again throughout time, and show up in a different guise as a new one. 

This is what the great book meant in the book of Ecclesiastes when it said this: There's nothing new under the sun. 

Okay, Go To The Next Shop

How To Announce A Project Change To Followers

Again, let's take a quick break from my current project to share an excerpt from my upcoming book, "Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity."

Life happens, and we all have to make changes as we go, but when you are doing a public project and have followers, you will have to share the changes you are making with your audience. This is how I went about mine during my project. Look forward to the launch of the book soon. 

Enjoy.

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Change: 30 to 21

With Day 4 done, week 1 is in the bag. But change is needed.


I have to alter the project a bit. I will be altering the project from 30 days to 21. So officially, it's now a 21 day project.


My original intention was for a hard end on December 17. To get in 30 days of work---including meeting owners, setting appointments, and delivering values---interviews, copywriting, and others--- by that date, I will have to work 6 days a week within 5 weeks to meet my deadline.


But thinking it over carefully after week 1, I will be better off with a 21 day project that still meets the deadline and delivers better value to owners, which is and should the main reason for the project.


Let's take a look at the calendar for the next two months.


It just shows all the days I have marked for meeting owners and delivering values. I have purposely left some days off for personal time, days off to rest, and to make time for prepping for appointments and gathering requirements.

 The project will be over by the 12th of December, as marked on the calendar, and the 13th, 14th, are days to warm down and to unwind.


The 15th and 16th will be days to call up and thank owners for their time and reception, and you all for coming along. But also will be time for turning in my report and to pen down my reflections on it all.


So here, below, is a short list of my reasons.


1. Saturdays are mostly often rest days for owners, and I'd like to take a few of mine, too, to pace myself and avoid burnout.


3. Prepping materials and values to deliver at the appointments, and to prepare them very well.


4. Factor in Thanksgiving weekend.


5. Time for other gigs.

6. Time to write my weekly reviews.


Thanks for listening, and see you all on Monday, the 17th, for Day 5, when I meet with "Oh Boy! Print Shop" and "Aces Jiu Jitsu Club." for my first interviews.

Have a good weekend, you all.

Peace.

You can do the same with yours. Just don't make too many changes, though. If you are in school, you can explain why your school schedule may clash with project days, and why you will be doing the project on non-school days. Your reasons should be reasonable, they should make sense, if you will.

This eases people in to the change, and keeps them from thinking you are flimsy, and can't be taken seriously. Believe me, if you give good and genuine reasons, people will understand. We are all humans, things happen, and almost nothing goes according to plan. Even my recent project in New York City which didn't go as planned required a change, and I announced the change on my blog and gave reasons why.

Learn this skill now, and it will pay off going forward for all other changes to projects/ plans you make in the future which involves other people.

The Mr. Cassette Interview

My interview with Jeff Bender of Mr. Cassette, an audio and video services company in Austin, Texas. Mr. Jeff Bender, who owns the company took some time to share his story with me, starting from how the business began from 1958 to now. 

He shares the story of ownership change that ended up leaving the business in his hands. Jeff's a man passionate about records, music editing, sounds,  and file conversions. 

Here's a short description of what he does, from his website:

"Whether it's recording and pressing records in the 60's, or building a custom BluRay today, Mr. Cassette has been providing the highest quality audio and video services for over 53 years.

We specialize in all old and new media conversions, duplication of many formats including CD's and DVD's, and film transfer using some of the best machines available..."

In the interview details we delve into different topics:

1. How he joined the company and later bought it

2. The resurgence of old cassettes

3. His passion for conversion and sound editing

4. His relationship with customers

5. What he enjoys the most about the business

6. New developments in sound quality and others.

Take a listen.

Building Community

Again, let's take a quick break from my current project to share an excerpt from my upcoming book, "Get To Know Your Backyard Opportunity."

This chapter is about the use of projects like the one I do in helping to build community. Look forward to the launch of the book soon. 

Enjoy.

.........

  
Building Community

I have listed a number of benefits to do something like this [my interview projects], but the chief of them all is building relationships and connecting people. When I say this, it's not only for the relationships you build for yourself but the relationships you could build among others. And if you build relationships among people you are actually building community, your community.

And in this case, When I say among others, I mean the relationships among the business owners you interview for your project. Since they all reside in your local community, connecting them with each other goes a long way towards building your own local community. Let me explain how.

When I started my project, I had no idea of the kind of local business owners that were in my local community, and never thought I'd get to know some of them. Not only did I learn from them and add value to their businesses and my blog, but at the end of my project I sought to add value to my community as well.

At the end of my project, I put together a list of all the owners I had interviewed and shared their information with each one of them. In a sense, I introduced each of them to each other. That way they will all, in a sense, get to know each other.

Why? This not only builds the community of Austin, Texas, through building relationships withing a very important component of the city, the merchants of the city, but each owner though avowedly in business to sell a product or render a service could be a customer to another business owner, in a different setting. So they are sellers in one setting, and are buyers in another.

For example, one of the owners I talked to, Rob Almaguer of Oh Boy! Print Shop, could be in need of a hosting space for a t-shirt demonstration/promotional event, and that space could easily be supplied by Mr. Matt Lacy of Cafe Java, who has a nice restaurant space that could host a 2 hour t-shirt event in Austin. If this need arises for Rob's business, and Rob reaches out to any of them for a quote on using their space it will not be a first meeting between them. Having been connected by me through my project, the conversation and bargaining could be friendlier, easier, and possibly discounts could be for the sake of strengthening a relationship instead of making a profit. Rob, a business owner, is now a client of a restaurant owner.

Yet who knows? Mr. Matt Lacey could need t-shirts printed for an in-store event he may be hosting next time, or simply to give his employees a new look, and you know what could happen, or who he could call.

In another setting, Mr. Rehan of Silver Grill Cafe could be looking for a gym that could help someone his knows get fit and that's when Carey Kepler of Crossfit Central would come into play. But without knowing each other beforehand or that Crossfit even exists, Mr. Rehan is highly unlikely to think of Crossfit Central, though they all do business in the same local community.

Actually, in a real example, Mr. Rehan and I had a conversation lately of how he would like to somehow improve the décor of his restaurant. Speaking of interior decoration, he would definitely need the help of an interior designer. I told him of Tina Son, whom I knew was an interior designer from my interview with her husband, Steve Riad of Tomo Sushi. Both owners had businesses in the same strip mall, and didn't know this.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying they must by all means help each other or do business with each other, but having these relationships and knowing these possibilities exist go a long way in solving problems and building community. So knowing they are both busy and most likely would likely to n, I decided to somehow connect them.

In that same way, if you happen to do your own local interviewing project, you could be their connector, and help build your community this way by starting relationships.

For how I actually went about this, including emails, PDFs, and and how to seek permission, please look forward to the book's launch. It will be available on this blog, and from time to time before it's launch, I will share bits and pieces of it. Thanks for coming along.