Last month I invested in a trip to Chicago and spent four days with peak performance coach Tony Robbins.

If you don’t know Tony or his work, he is worth knowing. He grew up in a household with very little money, often experiencing holidays with no food and a rotating door of four absent fathers.

His career took shape in the early 1980s as he walked on the beach, 40 pounds overweight, listening to the rock tune “Barracuda,” and feeling a big change was needed.

At the age of 19, after working with other legendary speakers like Jim Rohn, Tony’s path of success included conducting seminars, radio shows, writing books, and coaching.

Wikipedia reports Tony earned more than 30 million dollars in 2007, and that he has coached Serena Williams, Donna Karin, and Greg Norman, just to name a few. If that’s not enough, this spring NBC picked up eight episodes of “Breakthrough with Tony Robbins,” a reality show that follows Tony and participants as they battle personal challenges.

I’ve been a fan of Tony’s for years. I’ve read a few of his books and seeing him live was an item on my wish list. This year I decided I was going to do it.

A while back, I saw Tony on NBC’s “Today” show. The segment touted his web site so I checked it out and signed up for his emails.

I receive them often enough, but not on an obnoxious schedule. They’ve always been inspirational and have a deliberate business purpose. Most include a video of him, which I’ve found to be a great way to disseminate information and sell product. I’m definitely going to start using video when Oddpodz relaunches in few weeks.

TR sold me. The last email video message mentioned his upcoming Unleash the Power Within™ event to be held in Chicago.

I signed up. And not just as an attendee. I purchased a Diamond class ticket for an additional $1000. Why spend the extra bucks? Because, 1) I deserve it (which I know sounds like a Saturday Night Live segment with Jack Handy) and 2) If you are going meet other high achievers, it shouldn’t be in the nosebleed section. The extra fee was well worth it. Not only did I meet a ton of very cool, got-it-going-on people; the choice seating and no-wait entry zone is the only way to go.

By far this event was one of the most enjoyable, inspirational things I’ve done in my adult life. And I would highly recommend it to people looking to take their lives to next level of success and happiness.

The event was held at the Radisson in Schaumberg, IL, which is one of the nicest convention properties I have visited. It is very contemporary; hip, and energizing.

The event attracted over 3000 people from 18 countries. It was four packed days of incredible content, inspiration, and networking.

Tony was completely amazing. His nonstop energy and conviction were invigorating, and for me the fact that he and I were born in the same year and same month was my magic connection. I have to admit, there were moments during which being his age made me feel like a slacker.

Then I had a dose of reality. I am definitely not a slacker; I just need to amp up my standards and goals a bit this year.

All four days were extremely intense. There was lots of jumping, yelling, dancing, and loud music, and tremendous energy flow.

I learned some fascinating methods for controlling the mind and managing the body. And there are sessions that the wussies should not apply. Breaking old and bad patterns is very personal. While the event includes a big room of people, the exercises are very intimate.

If you ever take this journey, wear running shoes and bundle up. The room is frigid. In fact, I heard they kept the temperature at 58 to keep everyone alert and focused. It worked for me.

The first day Tony introduces human concepts about how most of us live; embracing our values and needs, thus creating the results we have. He then walks though those same situations and demonstrates how people can achieve different results by breaking old patterns, changing their story and mastering a deliberate, strategic state of psychological and mental being.

While none of this is new, breakthrough science or even a foreign language to most, it is presented in a way that can alter one’s thinking and beliefs and produce meaningful change.

My mind was in very good place when I arrived in Chicago. While the economy has challenged all of us, I had a very good year and continue to make excellent progress on my road to higher success.

My agenda in attending this event was two-fold, 1) observe a fellow master speaker and business authority and 2) further develop my success package. I took away both.

As many of you know, part of Tony’s Unleash the Power Within™ program is the infamous fire walk.

This is where sane humans prance across several yards of smoking-hot, burning coals while their fellow higher achievers and some tribal drummers chant on. And most don’t burn their feet.

Including me.

I’m not disclosing all the details, because the ultimate experience comes from participating in the journey; but I will tell you, it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had.

Being with thousands of complete strangers, in 37-degree, raining and windy, freeze-your-ass-off, brutal weather and achieving this scary-as-hell task was freaking remarkable.

Some highlights the event taught me and Tony Robbins teaches so well.

• Fear is the universal poison. But there are ways to leverage it and manage it to achieve happiness and success.

• Your past does not equal the future unless you choose to live there.

• The one word to sum up success is progress.

• Your mind and body are amazing success and happiness alleys. Master them both.

• Proximity is power.

• Start now. Life is not a dress rehearsal.

So, did my fire walk experience unleash more of my personal power?

Stay tuned and you’ll see for yourself.

Countdown begins, as we get closer to the re-launch of Oddpodz. I promise you, the wait will be worth it.

If you’d like more information on attending one of Tony’s events, reach out to my pal This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it at Robbins Research International, Inc.


I apologize for being light on the blogging this past month.

I have been very focused on the new Oddpodz Web site, which is scheduled to relaunch in just a few weeks. And I’ve been working on a new, green brand for a global industrial company, plus playing tennis and a good bit of travel; some for work, some for play, but all fun!

A few years ago I saw that movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson called “The Bucket List.” I thought the movie had a weak script and was overhyped by good trailers, but I liked being reminded of the value of having bucket lists. And making sure, I knock off as many as possible things while I can.

I don’t have cancer, I’m not old by most standards, and I have not seen a bus running me over in my crystal ball. But I do believe that life is not a dress rehearsal and there is no guarantee for tomorrow.

I operate my life in a goal-achieving and list-driven fashion. For me, it helps keep my eye on the rewards and experiences I want and it also feels good to cross something off and say “I did that.”

My bucket list is ambitious. It includes meeting some people I admire, like Richard Branson and Steve Jobs; owning a share in a professional sports team, watching “Oprah” from the studio audience; and spending quality, fun time with my Mom, who is 74. There is a lot more to the list, but that’s for another blog post.
I look at my bucket list monthly. And I take decisive action to make things happen.

My mom had never been to Chicago and wanted to go, and both of us had never been to “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” This seemed like a doable bucket list adventure. So I mentally went through my network of pals to figure out how to get tickets. Bingo! One of my very good friends came through. FYI, without a connection for tickets, anyone can go to the show’s site, and sign up for the lottery. I know this works because many of the people I met at the show got their tickets this way.

Chicago is a great city, especially in the fall. (The items and companies that I’m raving about have not paid me. I do recommend them based on my excellent experience.)

Our trip was not long, but it was quality. As a card-carrying, independent, modern girl, I highly recommend this method when traveling with all relatives.
We arrived Tuesday morning and Mike from Diva Limousine Company, greeted us at the airport in a black town car. How cool was this? The Branding Diva® picked up in a Divamobile.

I loved all of the branded details and experience this company delivered. The car had a discreet, elegant emblem that said DIVA. The driver was garbed in all black and sported a small lapel pin that also said DIVA. And the chilled beverages were all packaged in black and silver DIVA bottles.

He transported us to the James Hotel. This boutique property is located in heart of all the action and is a very hip spot. The staff was incredible, friendly, and helpful. The environment was eco meets chic and the chocolate-laced popcorn with cayenne pepper at the bar was to die for.
We fueled up for the day at Quartino, an excellent, urban Italian restaurant and wine bar a few blocks from the hotel.

From there, since we didn’t have a lot of time, we elected to take the 90-minute Chicago River and Lake architecture boat cruise, to see the city. This was fun, informative, and gave our weary feet a nice rest.

Next was Millennium Park. This is a fascinating tribute to the ambitious plans for Chicago in the 21st Century. As an award-winning center for music, architecture, landscape design, and the arts, it is a modern-day, worth-seeing landmark.

The day was capped off with a 4-star food experience at Sepia. Sepia is an old printer’s shop turned new American organic and local fare dining hot spot.

We finished the day with comedy at Second City. Second City is another Chicago landmark worth checking out. This theatre launched the careers of such comic greats as John Belushi, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner. It is inexpensive and 90 minutes of multi-generational laughs. Take your mom; you’ll understand what I mean.

Wednesday was Oprah day.

We needed to be there at 10:30am for the second show, which started after 1:00pm. In advance of the show, all guests received an email with rules; what to wear, what not to wear, and no gifts for Oprah or her staff, etc. All to ensure a non-dramatic, art directed, uninterrupted, wonderful show experience.

We arrived at 10:30 and joined a line of other dedicated Oprah fans. A coffee cart was outside serving free beverages. We could feel an instant camaraderie with 300 strangers; 290 women and 10 brave men.

At 11:00am a kind staffer allowed about 50 guests to enter the security zone. There, we and other guests were stripped of any potential weapons or distractions like cell phones, pagers, reading material, and even notepads. I’m sure from years of experience, the Harpo production team can anticipate myriad ways in which a guest might misbehave with uncontrolled, unpredictable objects. Our handbags were returned, so we could enter the show without missing an important fashion accessory; there was just nothing in the bag. All our belongings were checked in, and returned to us after the show.

From there, we were escorted to the holding room. Within the hour, this space was filled with our 300 new friends. We signed a release, stating general legal stuff and that should our sweet faces appear on the show or in some promotion, we would not receive a talent check from Ms O. Our pen was returned.

The next two hours were a challenge to me. I’m not a big fan of small talk and I do get a little restless without something to read or do. This holding area had a couple of large screen monitors showing old shows. However, there was no sound, or I couldn’t hear it above the roar of 300 excited fans.

At about 1:00pm, the show time countdown began. The cattle—I mean audience members—were moved to the studio. Any rule breakers wearing white or beige were shown a nosebleed seat. OK, there aren’t really nosebleed seats, but it’s not the front row.

The studio was “meat-locker freezing”. I remember this feeling whenever I’ve been a guest on TV shows. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe to prevent people from sleeping or to keep everyone’s makeup from melting off and prevent sweaty foreheads. Who knows; it was cold.

Next, the top producer entered the room with mic in hand. She welcomed everyone, restated a few rules of behavior and conducted a soft due diligence on the crowd. My bet is she was attempting to root out any crazy people who showed up for their 15 minutes of fame and might have warranted removal or arrest. This seemed to last about 30 minutes. The producer also enlightened the audience to the day’s topic and guests. The day we were there the subject was rebounding from tragedy and how your destiny is what you make of it.

The producer left, music and intro started, and Ms. O entered. She was barefoot, holding some very hot fashionista shoes, and was sporting jeans and a bright sweater. She found her place on the infamous couch and a hair and make-up person followed her, touched up her coif and powered down the shine, then it was show time! As Oprah got positioned, she small talked with the audience on some of the benefits of her life; someone else dresses her and fixes her hair. “Got to love that,” she laughed.

The show’s content was inspiring. It featured the daughter and husband of the Florida couple who were brutally slain in their home. The victims, Byrd and Melanie Billings, had adopted 12 special needs children, several of whom were home at the time of the crime. The story was very sad, but their grown daughter and her husband were moving forward and keeping their promise to her parents, “should anything ever happen, we will take care of the family.”

The other segments were equally compelling. A young couple badly burned in a plane crash described how they chose not to feel like victims, but to live every day to the fullest, grateful for what they have; their lives and family. And the closing story was about a man who happened to sit next to a young girl on a flight en route to her next foster home. The timid young girl shared how she felt; no one really loved her and she had no real family. After that encounter, and getting home to his family, the man tracked the young women down and he and his family later adopted her. He and his wife were empty nesters and that one plane ride changed their lives as well as the young girl who sat next to him.
My blog today is not hard on business tips. But if your personal life is not on track, if you are not taking care of your bucket list, your business is probably impacted.

As I close, here’s what I learned from my trip to see Oprah.

o No matter how bad your past is (abuse, growing up poor, having a different skin color, being rejected) it has no affect on your destiny unless you still live in the past. Choose your story to live.
o No dreams are too big. Not in our country. If you believe, you can achieve.
o Spend time with your parents, whether you have had, or have challenges with them. Do it now, Or you may miss your chance.
o With all relatives and friends, focus on what you appreciate in them and not what you don’t.
o Treat yourself well. If you enjoy travel and first class adventures, do it. If you like roughing it in the woods, go there. Don’t think about what you want, make it happen.
o Being a force of good is powerful. Oprah has certainly earned her marks in this area. She inspires, teaches, and has a voice. If Ms. O can do it, so can all of us in our own way.

Enjoy your week. My next blog will be about my fire walk in the rain with Tony Robbins.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

First of all, I apologize to everyone who got a double dose of the last blog post on “How mug shots matter.” I forgot that I had our email blaster on auto-pilot after I had already sent it out via on-demand last week.

It’s been a hectic week. I put the finishing touches on a 50-plus page marketing directive for one of my global consulting clients, worked hard on transitioning Oddpodz into a more social and user-friendly Website, and took my mom to Chicago for two days to see Oprah.

Early next week, I’ll blog about my trip to Chicago and the Oprah experience.

This week I’m focusing on an important aspect of entrepreneurship, or what I call “the high cost/high return of learning curves.” My goal is to share some lessons that hopefully will help you turn your learning curve experiences into meaningful milestones too.

Most of you know, the Oddpodz team has been at this community-building thing for a few years now. The founders had strong marketing and business backgrounds, however, none had technology expertise. But, we are a Web-based business so naturally the Oddpodz business model is reliant on technology.

Sound like a crazy path to take? And a bit risky? It was. But if you look at successful businesses throughout history, it’s not what they didn’t know that really mattered, it’s how they managed their weaknesses and leveraged their strengths.

Our company’s lack of in-house technology has definitely been one of our most challenging obstacles. This was evident from our first major Web site build in 2006. We hired the wrong Web development firm, expended over $400,000; lost 18 months in time-to-market, then realized our site was total crap and had to rebuild it just to meet basic functionality standards. During that time, we also needed to manage our content changes and hosting fees in a cost-effective manner, which brings us to today; we have our interim site up and running but with a whole new slew of flaws.

These could have killed us. But they didn’t. They made us stronger.

Fortunately, in 2007, when it came time to re-build and launch our second site, we connected with a Web development company that worked in .php open source (versus .net- or Microsoft-based), and also needed branding services, which I could provide. So we bartered about $40,000 in fees and kept our shaky train on the track. The good news, this technology time around, was that our leadership team was starting to gain a little ground on the IT learning curve. The new site was built with a much more user-friendly content management back-end called Joomla; we could make more updates ourselves. However, we were still very dependent on a fee-based, external team for support and many site changes.

Our second site was light years better than our first one, and it functioned. But soon after its launch, the honeymoon was over. Oddpodz was not generating revenues, our funding was gone, and the amount of cash we had to invest with our Web development company was not significant enough to get any timely service. This is one of the challenges of being small. Read more.

This put us in a very tough situation. Social media sites are continuously evolving. The industry is learning what users want from a Web site and community experience, new tools are becoming available; but without in-house technology expertise at the time, we were unable to move forward.

We needed to find a new Web service provider. Unfortunately, moving from one Web developer to another, or even finding an independent programmer can be risky, time-consuming, and potentially costly.

Even in a perfect world, a switch in developers can open up a can of worms. Custom programming and issues with workaround applications are discovered and then a blame game starts between the old and new resources.

For us, it all boiled down to Oddpodz having to choose its pain: stay and suffer, or switch and suffer.

I started researching alternate Web developers that knew Joomla. Through a Joomla training company, I was referred to several resources.

I soon found a company that I was comfortable with and they seemed to welcome small businesses accounts. I provided the contact with our back-end access so he could carefully look at our site before we made the move. He assured me his firm could help us and their fees and hosting costs would be substantially lower than what we had been paying. He also mentioned that our site was built in Joomla 1.0, which is no longer supported. He stressed the importance of upgrading of our site to Joomla 1.5 soon, or our site could experience all sorts of problems with no easy answers. We discussed upgrade costs and he said most conversions cost between $3,000-$4,000.

All of that sounded great to me; significantly reduce our hosting fees, upgrade our back end, and have a firm that seemed like it was truly interested in helping us with affordable services.

During this time of trying to source a new Web service provider, our current Web Company was beginning to generate more frustration. Our site programmer unexpectedly left and no one who remained seemed to have a clue what he had been doing for us. I felt like a change had to be made quickly.

So I pulled the trigger with the new company. This “simple move,” as sold to me, was not. This was due to both parties; the old company not being responsive to what the new company needed and the new company had not really looked under our hood while they were pitching us on the smooth hosting transition.

Yes, our site was moved to new servers. And we were saving some money. But at this point, lots of site functionality was lost for a host of reasons, including certain applications tied to old IP addresses. Others were just not available at all. Bottom line, we incurred $500.00 in troubleshooting fees just to get the site to function at 90 percent. Among the ten percent not functioning was our member sign up. So, if you came to our site, you could read content, but you couldn’t socialize or sign up as a new member.

This was not acceptable.

When I contacted our new Web developers, I was told that Oddpodz must upgrade to Joomla 1.5. But with this new information, the cost would not be $3,000-$4,000, but rather more like $16,000, and more for our testing time and involvement.

This totally sucked.

We would have been better off overpaying and getting under-serviced from the old company… at least the community worked.

Hence, my quandary: I believe Oddpodz can start generating revenues by offering tools and content for a fee. There are many successful sites that do this every day and one of our company’s strengths is creating solid content. But can we earn $16,000 in a few months to cover this investment? With our current team and resources, I don’t think so.

So what were our other options?

Using our in-house expertise, rebuild in Wordpress, add an ecommerce section and focus on our strengths in content development? This would cost under $5,000.

Upgrade the site to Joomla 1.5, but scale back functionality? This would cost around $8,000?

Throw in the towel and just focus on my other businesses.

After much deliberation, I concluded we would rebuild in Wordpress with our core team of contractors. We will leverage as many free tools as possible, build it slowly, and build it right.

This journey I just walked you through has been a big expensive pain. A lot of it was due to my and my partners’ lack of knowledge in Web technology, and not knowing what questions to ask the service providers when we engaged them.

Today, everyone is a lot smarter. And the company is still swimming toward success without water in its lungs.

The happy ending to these chapters of learning curves is, every one of these experiences taught us valuable lessons in technology and managing service providers. Even though these lessons are in hindsight, this entire learning curve has been a meaningful milestone.

1. Don’t let your fear of not knowing something stop your dream from launching.

2. Don’t let the fact that you don’t now beans about some part of the business stop you either. Life is a learning journey. Just know that it may get bumpy.

3. Don’t beat yourself up when you make mistakes. Stay focused on what you need to do to keep moving forward.

4. No matter how excited you are about building something, when you are making a big investment in your company, ask questions of yourself and your vendors about worst-case scenarios.

5. Don’t delegate a major project to a lone team member who does not have expertise in that area. As the leader of the company, don’t micro-manage, but do stay engaged with that person until you are enjoying smooth sailing.

6. If you have at least $100,000 to invest in technology, consider hiring someone (a programmer) who just works for you, not a company.

7. Beyond the time anyone says it takes to build a Website, add 10 percent for testing, and 10 percent for unforeseen changes.

8. Don’t build anything in a version of software that will soon be outdated, just to get something up, unless you are certain of the cost for the upgrade.

9. When a company is giving you a bid on a technology build project, if they have not thoroughly looked under your hood, be prepared for a higher cost.

10. Journal all your learning curves. At least once a year, pull them out and remind yourself of the progress you made because of them.

I am fortunate that in addition to Oddpodz, I operate a successful consulting practice. I can continue to fund and contribute to this company until we really start rocking and making some money.

Within the next 30 days you will see a new and improved site and community. It will still be a work in progress, but it will be another important milestone toward our success.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

You may not have given much thought to this question until the recent popularity and emergence of social media touched the masses. Beyond the social implications of this new media, social networks and social online tools play an essential role for all professionals, entrepreneurs, and business people. Posted content and images either add or subtract from your desired brand.

With over 800 million profiles on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn, and millions more on micro social sites, a mug shot or profile avatar has quite a bit of brand power.

Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, Associate Professor and Mervin Bower Fellow in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School conducted extensive research on the subject of social media and images. His findings indicate 70 percent of all social media actions are related to viewing pictures or other peoples’ profiles.

The day when only authors, rock stars, celebrities, and other gurus needed to consider their photo images is gone. Today everyone has a new stage on which to shine or look like a goofball.

And this is not limited to online social communities; the same goes for speakers at conferences. Regardless of your professional status as a speaker, if you are contributing to the program and the organization is promoting you on a Web site, your image counts. This also applies to printed association directories and what you put on your own Web site.

Your mug is your surrogate persona and a voice for your brand.

Don’t fall victim to the crappy, old, and tired photo thing. You can control this part of your brand.

If your goal is to build an online footprint that supports your professional substance and brand, here are some tips I recommend to get the biggest bang from your mug shot.

1) Consistency is key.
Use the same image of you in all of your social communities. This will build equity in your visual mark and strengthen the memory factor.

2) Production quality says a lot about you.
Grainy, wrong, and low-resolution images scream cheesy, unprofessional, and that you are foreign to the online environment.

3) Project your true you.
If you are a creative soul, let your photo image convey that. Cropping, adding a compelling prop, and the right facial expression can achieve that.

Are edge and risk part of your brand? Then demonstrate this with the style of image.

Are you serious, conservative, or highly intelligent? A traditional portrait may best suit you.

For any of these personas, consider your wardrobe, accessories, and the background. All of these elements project a message.

4) Keep your image current.
There is nothing worse than meeting someone who is 25 years older than his or her published photos. Update your photos every couple of years, unless you look pretty much the same—and good for you! This can be a trust issue too.

5) Invest in your brand.
Using a group shot where others were cropped out of the original, or posting a poorly-lit image with no contrast to feature your brilliance are often the product of being cheap and not valuing your brand. Your photo image is often the first thing people associate with you and your qualities.

Remember, first impressions only happen once and people make immediate judgments based on what they see.

As noted on front page of Oddpodz, we are experiencing some changes to our site. Our plan is to re-launch in the next 30 days with better social dialogue tools, more blog contributors, and useful tools to help you grow your business.

During our transition, some items in the Community section of the site are not functioning properly. We are working on all of these.

Thank you for your patience!

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

Hope everyone had good Labor Day, whether you were relaxing or keeping your entrepreneurial pedal to the metal.

My weekend was very productive and enjoyable. I got some serious thinking and writing completed. I played solid tennis and watched the US Open too.

Holidays on Mondays always seem to throw my calendar off a bit. I thought it was Monday all day.

It likely didn’t help matters that I spent half the day grueling over two fraud charges on one of my credit cards.

A lesson about fraud for everyone with a credit card.

Six months ago, I noticed two charges on one of my credit cards. The first flag: it was a card I never use; the second: it was paid to Web hosting company with whom I have not done business.

I immediately called American Express. They opened an investigation and removed the charges. I never thought about it again, until this morning when I received two letters from a collections agency about these two charges, demanding payment and informing me that my credit score was at risk.

Again, I called American Express immediately. They were very nice and helpful, but explained that once something goes to a collection agency, they are out of the loop and the responsibility is back on the card owner. They said I needed to call the collections agency. Boy that was a treat. Even though they tell you that the calls will be monitored, the service and level of kindness was a minus 15 on a 1-5 scale.

This took one and one-half hours. I got disconnected twice and rerouted three times. When I finally had a live person on the phone, she scolded me for assuming the credit card company had handled the matter and informed me I needed to call the company who registered the charge. Here we go again.

I called the Web service provider and experienced the same dreadful phone tree, excessive hold time, disconnect, and redirect for around an hour more. Eventually, I heard “Customer service and billing how can I help you?”
I explained my story again, now for the third time to the 11th person, and he said, “Ma’am, just because American Express removed the charge from your card, does not mean you don’t owe us this money. It is your responsibility to contact our fraud department if, in fact, you think its fraud. Would you like me to connect you?”

In a calm, yet hostile voice I said, “Please!”

Wouldn’t you know it—the fraud department voice mailbox was full. I had to leave a message and I got a double shot of tequila.

About an hour later a gentleman phoned me back. “I’m Josh from fraud services at company XYZ returning your call.” I explained my situation again; I don’t know this company, never bought anything from them, etc. He put me on hold and said, “Let me look into something.”

After grilling me with bunch of questions, there was a pause. “Ms. Post, I see a series of missing information in this record. That means I believe you are telling the truth and concur that this is fraud charge. I will remove the charge of $39.00 from your account and you are free to get back to your life.” OK, I made up that last part.

Here’s the point. A small charge like this one for $39.00 can screw up your credit for a long time and cause you to waste a boat load full of precious time along the way.

If something appears on your credit card that is not yours, you must file a claim with the provider, and monitor it until it is resolved. Filing a claim with your credit card is not enough!

In the midst of this bloody mess, while on hold, via one of my great interns, I did discover two very cool, FREE tools to help monitor your competition and your online footprint success. Check these out.

Find out what your site is worth

$timator.com is a calculator that ranks a site’s worth based on SEO, content, back links, traffic, and more and provides you a snapshot of your online effectiveness. Happy to report, Oddpodz earned a “very good” on overall site evaluation and a valuation of just under $600,000. You can run your site along with any of your competitors.

Find out how your site is ranking with social media, buzz, and other marketing channels

Dataopedia.com provides a lot of diverse data concerning the Web; gathering data from more than 50 sources. Datopedia.com is an aggregation web service that lets users find out all the valuable facts about any website, such as traffic, online buzz, contact information, popularity in social bookmarking services…in short, all the essential facts about every website you can come across on the Internet.

This tool is one-stop resource for finding website facts, and the service can be accessed via the website, the mobile site, embeddable widgets for your website, and browser add-ons.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

Whoever said “No pain, no gain,” obviously had a few start-ups and small businesses under his or her belt.

The past few months for Oddpodz have been a period of growth and transformation. We are happy to report, we are still moving forward, however, we’ve also had a good share of “OUCHES!”

We have struggled through a frozen economy.

We have danced with investors and fundraising gurus in “not-much-action-for-pre-revenue-deals” funding market.

We have squeezed 18 hours of productivity out of 8-hour work days with a limited team.

And we have kept smiles on our faces, when inside we were often scared and freaked out.

If being an entrepreneur—starting and leading a small business—is in your life path, put your thick skin on and embrace the ability to let challenges not defeat you, but drive you forward.

Progress and change are essential for business success. But when you are a young and small enterprise they also bring several suitcases of uncomfortable side effects.

For almost a year, Oddpodz knew our Web development company was not the right fit. They were not a bad company, but our needs and budget and their needs and budgets were miles apart. We didn’t make a change because the interruption and anticipated new expenses outweighed the acceptance of sluggish service, spending more than we needed to for hosting, etc., so we just carried on.

For nearly eight months, Oddpodz has been operating with a half-tank of gas too. Running a community, marketing, producing content, managing a site, and still earning a living to fund a pre-revenue producing company requires a full tank of dedicated resources.

No matter how creative and passionate we were, this combination was not going to take us to the Promised Land. In fact, it was likely moving us closer to the end.

No matter how painful it was going to be, change had to happen.

We needed a new, responsive, affordable Web partner.

We cut our ties with our old dev firm and found a new resource. They are 3by400. They are Joomla specialists, (Oddpodz is build in Joomla), they have a track record of social media and ecommerce successes, and most of their clients are our size; small, but with potential to scale up quickly. Today we had our first strategic planning meeting with Brent, Kim, and Beth. We heard about many new applications and solutions and are looking forward to enhancing our community platform and site with their expertise.

We needed an additional dedicated, strategic partner, and contributor.

If the one lone founding partner was to lead and fund the company’s growth, at a pre-revenue stage, we needed another social media- and business savvy entrepreneur to add to the team. Rome or any city of stature was not built by one person. We drafted a very comprehensive position description for an ideal community manager. We placed it on high traffic social and job sites and started the process of finding Oddpodz a new community master. Ultimately the winning candidate came through a Twitter post. His name is Keith Burtis. He is a balance and mix of techno-dude, market maker, and creative wonder. He resides in my old stomping grounds outside Buffalo. Oddpodz is ecstatic about our new relationship. We will share more about Keith soon, but just know that there are lots of exciting and new things around the corner for the company and you.

Yes, all this progress is exciting. But with it comes time-consuming, brain-stretching, and investment-needing stuff too.

Turns out our old site was pretty cobbled together with lots of out of date applications and workarounds from a programming team that was no longer anywhere to be found. In fact, Joomla 1.0 had no support and the hosting and IP change caused many features to not transfer or function.

Yikes! This kind of progress hurts a lot until you start reaping your first season of fruit.

Our new community master is awesome. Smart, thoughtful, and creative. His presence feels like a double shot of B12. And once our immune system gets strong again, we are confident there are no marathons we won’t be able run.

We know many of you fellow entrepreneurs are feeling this stress too. Here are five tips to help you manage through your progress and change too.

1. Stay focused on the big things that matter. Answering every email and looking at vendors’ offers when you don’t have the time or resources to invest in them are a huge waste of time.

2. Amp up your efficiency, in everything you do. Put instructions and expectations in writing, start every meeting with an agenda, and utilize productively tools to maximize the hours in your day. While this takes time, it saves a lot more in the end.

3. Keep your standards high and don’t compromise because you are feeling beat up or frustrated. This will, in the long run, produce better results.

4. Do not worry or obsess about things that you cannot control or are in the past. Channel your unequivocal energy on finding solutions that get you closer to your goals.

5. Make your physical and mental fitness regime a top priority. Exercise daily, stretch, meditate, and take deep breaths often. Eat right and sleep enough.

In this time of change we are doing our best to support and grow our community. What types of things can we do better? What types of features would be valuable to you?

Until next time

Thank you for your continued support, your visits, time, and suggestions.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

I’m not knocking higher education, or any school for that matter, concerning what it can contribute to anyone’s business success. But it certainly is worth noting that some of this century’s most successful business moguls: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and even Madonna do not have a college degree.

So what do these entrepreneurs know about starting and running a business that they didn’t learn in college or business school? And what is it that, likely, most institutions don’t spend a lot of time teaching students?

I attended one year of college and then exited early to start my first business at 22. It was an ad agency I led for nearly 20 years. While I love to learn, I never enjoyed school. I always felt impatient and couldn’t understand how so many core classes would ever be relevant to my life. Even without this formal education, I’ve been fortunate to experience a nice sum of success.

I’ve also worked with highly educated professionals; PhDs, MBAs and MDs, and I’ve been amazed by some missing fundamentals in their work styles and business practices.

These items rise to the top from my experiences and from observing other successful entrepreneurs.

1) Risk is a key factor to business breakthroughs.

No risk, no reward. Entrepreneurs must embrace a level of danger, the uncomfortable zone, and unknown elements to move ahead. Most innovations enter the world as unaccepted, anti-logic, even crazy concepts with high degrees of resistance.

2) All business has political and sport aspects in it.

Look around you, everything you touch has political cause and effects imbedded in it. Egos, competitive genes, and strategic game plans direct the majority of business ventures.

3) Emotional toughness separates the winners from the rest.

No doubt, being smart and creative count in business. But equally as important is one’s emotional toughness quotient. Can you recover from the big mistakes you make, quickly? Can you not let the opinions of others impact you? Can you dismiss the voices in your head from your childhood?

4) Intuition is real and should be trusted.

Intuition is a mysterious thing that happens without a lot of fact, logic, or reason. I believe it occurs as a by-product of your sub conscious awareness and everyday life observations. Ignoring and not trusting this power is dangerous.

5) Packaging, charisma, and confidence matter a lot.

Humans make a lot of judgments and get first impressions by what they see. Whether this is right or wrong, it happens every day. Then people translate these visual messages into associations of strengths or weaknesses. Non-tangible and sometimes not-substantiated communications like charisma and confidence are hugely important in business progress. Every businessperson should invest in all of the above for themselves and for their supporting team members.

6) At least every seventh person you meet with disappoint you.

This number may be a myth. Recently, I’m convinced it’s every fifth person that will disappoint you and is a card-carrying moron. Being a negative skeptic is not the answer. Doing your homework and acknowledging #4 is the secret here.

I’m sure many of you (especially the real entrepreneurs at heart) are thinking these six practices are common sense and natural behaviors. They are, and that’s why they are often overlooked in traditional learning environments.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

Whoever said “size does matter” was partially correct. In a lot of cases it does. I suppose if you were a small mouse and a fat hairy cat had you in a corner, that could be grim. Or, if you were wrestling a 700-pound sumo and you only weighed 99 pounds with your three-pound Nikes, I wouldn’t want to go there either.

However, in business, being small does not need to be the big curse, if you manage it correctly.

During the past of couple years, with Oddpodz; my young, petite startup, I’ve felt that small-seriously-sucks syndrome, often and with some giant challenges.

• Vendors regularly provide small firms less-than-stellar service because our cash contribution is relatively small and if they lose the business, it is not a big loss to them.

• Potential employees view small companies as a tightrope career track full of risk, limited security, and likely with no insurance.

• Strategic partners believe success happens by big company association
• Client prospects often get delusional and bonus your larger competitor with meritless points because of their grander size and scale.

That sucks no matter how you package it. And the reality is that everyday, worthy small companies get discriminated against and doors slammed on their little toes because of their size.

So do you stop there and say: “Poor me. I’m small. Being broke is in my DNA”?

No, you don’t let those temporary situations get you down, in fact, use them to get stronger. And appreciate that being small has its benefits too.

Here are four ways to turn around feeling small and disadvantaged into being tall and on the road to mammoth success.

1) Select vendors that are sized for your needs. This may take some additional due diligence, but the outcome will be worth it. Interview with high standards and trust the red flags you see or feel early on. Set expectations up front and put them in writing. And no matter how much you like the vendor, think about what happens if they don’t deliver; how will you get out of the deal without scary repercussions? And if they do an awesome job, let them know with a testimonial and refer new business back to them.

2) Recruit like-minded self-starter, risk-takers. If you are a small, entrepreneurial company, you need entrepreneurial team spirit and support. Don’t waste a lot of time on people who need security blankets. Changing a corporate type into an entrepreneur is like finding a frog that can meow; i.e., likely not going to happen. Be honest with recruits and employees, but it is not always wise to share every detail. And be thoughtful on recognition and rewards. Do both and often and remember it does not always include money.

3) Consistent performance supersedes size every time. There are big strategic partners and ideal clients who will give opportunities to small businesses. In some cases it is luck; in most cases it is because the small company earned the opportunity by doing a great job, going the extra mile, and squashing the big partner or clients’ perceived risk associated with small. From your proposal to delivering the goods or services, don’t settle for being average; go for brilliance everyday.

4) Confidence is a powerful weapon. Being small is no cakewalk. However, it is pretty amazing how many small details can make a big difference when you are a small potato. Much of the perception a small business creates is controllable. Confidence is communicated by posture and your handshake (stand tall and leave the wet fish at home), dress (better to overdress any day); and choice of words, written and spoken (don’t feel or think something, believe it and don’t suggest an idea, recommend it).

Be proud of small.

All the giant firms out there—Google, FedEx and Victoria’s Secret—all started small. And staying small can be good too. Big is not best for everyone. No matter what size success you want, or what scale you want your dream to be, taking the above actions will add value and benefits to your business.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

Last week I earned many of your eyeballs by sharing how I scored a 6-figure gig while using Twitter.

Twitter is definitely a viable method for communicating to prospects, clients, and business fans but, like many new social platforms, it can be overwhelming. Not just how it works, but also how to utilize all the handy applications that are available to enhance your experience and value gained with it.

Twitter is a microblog that enables real-time messaging to the world via your computer or mobile device. The only rule—your message must be under 140 characters.

Start slow and simple. Add apps as you get comfortable with it.

Here’s a rundown on some of my favorite Twitter tools and how I use them. If you have discovered a Twitter tool that really rocks, please share it in a comment on the Oddpodz blog, so others can learn about it.

1) Grade your Twitter profile. Try Twitter grader learn to see if your tweet power, authority, and reach are working for you. This grader not only gives you a score, but tells you how to amp things up.

2) Organize and manage your tweets Better. Check out TweetDeck. This cool tool is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now; connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, and more. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date.

3) Analyze your tweets. Twitter analyzer is amazing. This is a great tool to see what type of professionals are following you, how many people you are reaching beyond your followers, who is tweeting about you, and lots more.

4) Track the Twitter addicts by location. Twitterholic lets you find people in a geographic area and also ranks you in the world of Twitterers. For example, since I live in Tampa, I searched with http://Twitterholic.com/top100/followers/bylocation/Tampa/ and learned how often Tampa folks were tweeting and who they were. I also learned that I am #52 in active Tampa tweeters.

5) How does your profile compare to others (like your competitors) and how do subjects compare. Twittervolume provides a great snapshot. Type in your handle along with competitors; Tweetvolume shows you the volume tweets. Want to find the best key word? Type in several like I did: sales, marketing, branding, and women business. Guess which ranked highest? I won’t tell—you’ll have to check it out.

A blog post on Twitter tools could go on for days. Every day, new and improved Twitter tools are hatched. If you need more good ideas, check out my pal Chris Brogan’s blog, he has a great post called “50 ideas for using Twitter for Biz”
Also see my other super-smart marketing friend John Jantsch of “Duct Tape Marketing,” at ducttapemarketing. John’s blog is filled with sound insight.

Have an awesome week! And don’t forget to check out Oddpodz Free Biz Findz. This week we are adding 20 new super, cool, and FREE items.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers¹ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.

For all the doubters and naysayers, social media can bring in the Benjamins. In fact, for my consulting practice, Brain Tattoo Branding, Twitter scored an exciting, new, six-figure assignment.

So how did it happen?
First, you’ve got to be signed up. It’s easy and painless. If you are clueless to the new world of Twitter, watch the video on the Twitter web site and also check out these excellent books on the subject.

All A Twitter by Tee Morris

Twitter for Dummies by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston

Secondly, you need to understand what Twitter is and is not. In a bird shell, Twitter is a micro blog that enables you to post and read “tweets.” A tweet is a text message in a concise, less than 140-character format. A tweet post has no content boundaries other than length. You can tweet or twitter anything, from a question, a quote, an opinion; a status on what you are doing, feeling or about to do; share resources, or dish an experience.

Twitter is a real-time communication channel for personal and business purposes. It is intended to adhere to the new social media etiquette and be more about dialogue and helping rather than hard selling. But, like many things in life, there are always a few bird brains that don’t seem to get that part.

Back to how I did it.
I set up my profile, selected a handle — @brandingdiva.com, uploaded a photo, and added keywords that are relevant to my world. Now, as a twitterer, I get to follow others, which means their posts are in a timeline on my Twitter page. It’s not about quantity, but quality. You must follow people who can add to your success.

A few years ago I joined a mentor group lead by The Million Dollar Consultant, Alan Weiss. Alan has authored over 32 books and is one of the smartest cats I know. He helped me improve my business proposals, leverage my intellectual property, and just become a better consultant. I delete reams of newsletters and mail in my inbox daily, but, I’m very religious about reading Alan’s stuff.

In a recent email, he suggested I follow him on Twitter @BentleyGTCSpeed. And because I like Alan’s thinking and humor, I thought this would be a great way to get bite-sized samples of his brilliance, fast. So I started following him.

That Saturday night, I was drinking my BV cab and perusing my tweets, and I saw one from Alan. It read something like: Global industrial company looking for branding and naming specialist, interested parties contact XYZ.

So I did, right that moment. I shot an email to the contact listed. My branded email was formal and included my contact info, background on me, services summary, web site links, and an article from a prominent business publication in India that highlighted me and my views on brand naming.

Within minutes, I heard back from the contact; we exchanged a few more emails and then chatted on the phone. It turned out that he had also been in Alan’s mentor program. He was not the client, but was making recommendations to the client. After all of our dialogue, I was on the short list.

A few weeks later, I got a call from the client outlining the actual assignment, background on the company, and other details. I listened more than I talked. From there, he requested a proposal. I explained to him, that before I could produce the proposal, I needed some additional information from him and agreement on key issues around the project. My list was extensive, but he promptly answered all my questions and I submitted my proposal.

My proposal was brief; not a lot of selling, but it did include our agreed-upon goals, measure of success and value expected, pricing options, and a strong overview of my company’s credentials and B2B experience.

Three weeks later, I get another call. They want me to come to their home office to meet the team. They also requested I summarize my proposal into 3-4 pages. I obliged, on my nickel. For those you who squirm at shelling out travel expenses in advance of getting a deal, I say get real, if you are worth your proposal, you will earn this back quickly.

As it turned out, they were interviewing several firms and I was still in the hunt. To reinforce my position as a branding authority who works in diverse sectors, I prepared and did as much homework as I could. I flew in the night before, leaving nothing to chance, flight delays, bad weather, etc.

In my pitch I stressed my creative problem-solving ability above my knowledge of their industry. I rehearsed my key points and continued to listen and ask questions. In fact, I walked in with a list of both, so I wouldn’t forget anything. While I had plenty of B2B experience, I did not have hands-on experience in their specific industry category. However, I presented my lack of specific experience as a strength, not a weakness.

A few weeks later, I got the bright green light and today I’m working with a great company on a challenging project. Once we take it public, I will share with you more on the branding and project processes and outcome.

I am thrilled that a new social media like Twitter made this opportunity possible. I hope it soon does the same for you. Following are the key lessons I took away from this experience.

Lessons learned:

1) Twitter is tool, just like your business card.
2) Twitter is not an autopilot sales associate.
3) Twitter is a marketing tactic that you must use strategically.
4) Social media is not a magic potion that cures all; it is one piece of your marketing arsenal.
5) Jump on opportunities when you see them. Even on the weekends.
6) First impressions only come once.
7) Be efficient and “on your brand” with all of your touch points.
8) Not having experience in someone’s business is not a deal killer.
9) Listen more. Talk less.
10) Do your homework on the prospect’s competition, their leadership, and the challenges they face.
11) Proposals are to confirm goals, methods, measures, and expectations; not to convince.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com.