Working The Second Shift
By Cheval John
Most entrepreneurs begin their businesses while they are working full time for their respective companies.
When they finish their duties for the day as an employee, they go to work on their business for the better.
Dr. Harold Arnold describes these part-time entrepreneurs who are building their businesses in the term of working the second shift.
He came out with the book, Second Shift, and shared about how he wrote the book on “Starve The Doubts,” with host Jared Easley, where I served as one of the co-host of the show along with fellow co-host Renee Groskreutz for this episode.
Professional athletes are in a lot of ways like part-time entrepreneurs because they are competing on a daily basis compete in their respective sports.
Everyday on national media outlets like ESPN, NBC, we hear from pundits on what these athletes did or did not do to help their team win.
Their identity are immediately connected to the sports they play.
And most of these athletes are working in their second shift when they are building their very own businesses during their off season.
They understand that they have to do something different once they retire from their respective sports.
So in a lot of ways, part-time entrepreneurs can relate to professional athletes.
And there is nothing wrong with starting your business on the side while you are an employee.
As long as that businesses does not conflict with your place of work either in the sports industry, public relations industry, etc.
The Flexibility of An Online Business
By Cheval John
Soccer (as the world calls football) is one of the most unique sports ever created.
The sport is played in all of the 193 sovereign countries and all of the about 50 territories of the world.
Soccer’s success can attribute to a lot of tournaments that includes the FIFA’s World Cup and the UEFA Champions League.
For the athletes that plays soccer, it allows them to build a foundation that can set them and their families to break the poverty that the majority of them grew up in.
Another benefit that athletes have in playing soccer is the opportunity to travel the world.
They can interact with a new culture that is different than theirs and also improve their soccer skills that can benefit their respective national team.
In a lot of ways, creating an online business can allow you to work from anywhere in the world.
According to this 2014 Internet Retailer article, they are between 12- 24 million online businesses in the world today.
That makes it easy for a business owner to work from anywhere in the world and run their business.
And to add on the fact that social media has made it more manageable to interact with their prospective customers everyday, the business owner can succeed from any location in the world for the better.
Now if you have a business and you are not on social media, you are very invisible.
The reason being is that your potential customers are already on social media and are making their decision of whether to buy from a business or not based on what they see from their peers on social media.
Another reason why a business owner should be on social media is because half the world are on social media according this Fortune article.
Ahna Hendrix, who is the founder and CEO of Arch Digital Agency, was very smart in building her online presence while she was in college before creating her business.
Ahna shared with me on What’s The Word? about how her travels indirectly helped her to form her business and why many people should embrace social media.
She also chatted about her podcast, “Behind The Brand with Ahna,” which she records on the live streaming platform, Blab.
In conclusion, the internet has opened doors for anyone to run an online business and build strong friendships through social media.
If a person uses social media correctly, they can have a long lasting business that will allow them to travel and also make the world a better place.
Celebrating 3 Years In Podcasting
By Cheval John
Courtesy of www.hfmatretrony.org
As SuperBowl 50 is about to begin in about two hours, national media outlets from CBS, the NFL Network, ESPN, USA Today, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle etc. are providing a whole lot of attention and buzz around the different strategies that lead either the Carolina Panthers or the Denver Broncos to winning the championship.
A new wave of media is making the national media to take notice and even adapt to how they broadcast events like the SuperBowl.
Live streaming applications like Periscope and Blab have allowed people who are not with the official media to broadcast their expertise in entrepreneuership, social media and even sports.
In the case of blab, their application makes it easier for someone who is a podcaster to record their shows in front of a “live audience” and overtime build their fanbase for their shows.
I can say that I am one of the podcasters who have started to record my show, What’s The Word? on blab from September of 2015 and have been putting the show’s recordings on BlogTalkRadio to come out at a later time.
BlogTalkRadio was where I started my show three years ago on this very day.
I never thought I would still be podcasting even now because most podcasters don’t make it past the seventh episode because they don’t see the immediate results of getting rich from their podcasts in the same way that John Lee Dumas has become rich from his “Entrepreneur On Fire” podcast.
Dumas is the exception because he was the first to have a 7-day a week podcast and that is the reason why he is extremely successful with his podcast.
Many don’t understand that podcasting takes hard work and dedication and that you will not achieve a million downloads overnight according to this article on Libsyn’s blog.
I know that I was blessed to have begun my podcast which is an extension of Vallano Media from Huntsville, Texas, a small city which is an hour north of Houston and that the guests from the early episodes of my show were faculty and sports coaches from my alma mater, Sam Houston State University.
The very first guest for my show was Peter Roussel, former White House spokesperson and current adjunct professor in the Mass Communication Department.
Even though my first episode did not start out well, I have learned how to become a better podcaster over time.
I am still learning to this day of how to be a great podcaster for the better.
Plus, I am not going after the A-listers as much to be on my show as I did before (even though my intention was to lift them up to another level of success) because I want to treat everyone the same and not give special treatment just because they are a well-known name for the better.
Also, you will get a whole lot of value from a guest who is not a well-known celebrity and will uplift your audience and even yourself to be better people.
A couple of my favorite episodes showcases that example of not too well known guests who have uplifted me and my audience for the better.
Christin Kardos, who is now a community manager for Convince and Convert
Kelly Hungerford, Digital Strategist
Greg Walker, Author And Entrepreneur
Jackie Bernardi: Entrepreneur And Beauty Industry Business Catalyst
Tamara McCleary, Creator of RelationShift
So the most important message that you can take away from this post is to always be consistent with putting out uplifting messages on your podcasts, blogs, YouTube videos, etc. and don’t ever look for the “overnight success” because overtime, you will achieve important milestones that will make you appreciate the hard work that you put into creating quality shows for the better.
The Most Wide-Spread SuperBowl In History
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of LegendsSportsBar.com
The most anticipated event of the year in the National Football League (NFL), the 50th SuperBowl is set to become reality tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. eastern, 3:30 p.m. pacific.
For a lot of people, this SuperBowl is the most spread out in history.
According to the Houston Chronicle‘s John McClain, the NFL’s media center headquarters is in the city and county of San Francisco, while the media day event that took place on Monday night is in San Jose, 48 miles south of San Francisco.
And Levi’s Stadium, which is the setting for the big game, is in Santa Clara, California, 45 miles south of San Francisco.
Another observation that Mr. McClain noted in his article for the Chronicle is that the teams who are participating in this momentous event are based in different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Denver Broncos are practicing and staying at a hotel in the city of San Francisco.
The Carolina Panthers are practicing and staying in San Jose.
So the logistics of the whole SuperBowl events taken place in the San Francisco Bay area, are in a lot of ways a nightmare.
For veteran sports journalists like Mr. McClain, who have covered the NFL for the Houston Chronicle for 35 years, and Charean Williams, writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who is in her 22th year of covering the NFL, the travel will be challenging and at the same time fun.
As Jackie McMullan mentioned years ago during an behind the scenes of ESPN’s, “Around The Horn,” the SuperBowl is where journalists are working extremely harder because they have to cover stories like never before.
They have to showcase every angle of what is happening at the city that is hosting the SuperBowl.
In the case of this SuperBowl being held in the San Francisco Bay area, these journalists will have to travel long distances to do interviews with the football players who are participating in the SuperBowl, go to the NFL Awards show, plus go to the NFL meetings where the commissioner of the NFL address the state of the football league that he is in charge of.
One can ask, what if the 49ners was still playing their football matchups at the old CandleStick Park in the city of San Francisco, would there have been a SuperBowl in the Bay area?
I can honestly guess that the San Francisco Bay area would not have hosted the SuperBowl if the 49ners have played their home matchups in their old stadium.
But because of the newly built Levi’s Stadium in the city of Santa Clara, which has a population of over 120,000, they were able to lure the NFL to host the big matchup in their area and bring in a whole lot of revenue to their respective cities.
Plus, they will be able to gain more national and even international attention like never before.
For example, the mayor of Santa Clara, Jamie L. Matthews, was featured in the New York Times about how he will not attend the SuperBowl despite getting a free ticket.
Though it was not planned, Mr. Matthews’ “refusal” to attend the SuperBowl that is being hosted in his city, has gotten a lot of press because people were curious to know why he would turn down a free ticket when many others are paying thousands of dollars to be at the stadium.
So for those who have traveled to the San Francisco Bay area for the SuperBowl, I commend you because y’all can say that you were at the most wide-spread SuperBowl event in history.
As for the predictions of who will win the SuperBowl?
I will say that the Denver Broncos will surprise everyone and defeat the heavily favored Carolina Panthers.
And everyone else who live in the Denver area like my friend and coach, Tamara McCleary, are also believing for a Broncos win.
Everyone “Benefits” From Oil And Gas
By Cheval John
February 23rd, 2016
Photo Courtesy of Art Institute.edu
Houston has it advantages and disadvantages of being the energy capital of the world.
One of the advantages is being the location of 26 Fortune 500 companies behind New York City.
The other advantage is being the host of the 35th annual IHS CERA Week at the Hilton-Americas Houston hotel in downtown Houston.
The conference brings together executives, policymakers and government officials from around the world to discuss about the future of energy and the inconsistencies of the oil and gas industry.
One could say that this conference was timely because of the drop in price for oil in recent months.
Some quotes from the conference on Twitter includes:
For the ordinary consumer, this would be seem to be like great news because of the low cost of gasoline in most of the USA.
They would believe that they deserve a huge break after the years of paying high prices for gasoline.
What they fail to understand is that the recession in the oil and gas industry have an indirect effect on other industries as well.
Case in point, Houston.
The Bayou City had grown over the years due to the oil and gas industry.
Marcellius Foster, a former resident of Huntsville, Texas, became wealthy due to his investment in the discovery of oil at Spindletop and founded the Houston Chronicle in 1901.
And when the recession hit most of the country, Houston was able to offset the recession because the oil and gas was able to boost up their local economy.
And over those years, those who become millionaires due to the oil and gas industry gave the city of Houston their own respective sports teams like the Houston Astros (1962), the Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans,) the Houston Rockets (1971) and the Houston Texans (2002).
But when the oil bust happened in the late 80s, Houston felt the worst of that failure because the majority of their economy was in the oil and gas.
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And though Houston has diversified their economy since the oil bust, businesses will still experience the sting of the oil and gas industry indirectly.
An example would be the restaurants and coffee shops.
And when most of the employees gets laid off from most of the Fortune 500 companies due to the current recession in the oil and gas, it affects them because they cater to these same employees.
So in the long run, everyone is affected by the oil and gas industry.
And if they want to avoid the affects of the oil and gas industry, they will have to build a strong online presence by sharing valuable content through their blogs, podcasts, video etc. about their expertise in the oil and gas industry.
They will also have to be as transparent as possible and participate in group chats on social media platforms.
Because when they have a strong network that they built while they were working in the oil and gas industry and have a loyal audience through social media, they will have a 80% chance of gaining work whether as an employee or an entrepreneur when the layoffs happened to them.
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