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December 18, 2016  

Taking A “Break” From Houston, Texas

By Cheval John

It was truly exciting to have the new 2017 Toyota Avalon for an entire week because it gave me the opportunity to visit Huntsville, Texas and also The Woodlands, (a Master-Planned Community in the Houston area).

I used to live in Huntsville for 15 years due to starting college late (graduate from Lone
Star College in 2007 and from Sam Houston State University (SHSU) in 2009) before moving to the Houston area in 2014.

It was in that small city of over 40,000 that I became an accidental entrepreneur, a podcaster and an author.

What made the trip to Huntsville and The Woodlands more fun was the fact that the avalon had a Sirius XM stations that allowed me to discover awesome stations that was dedicated to jazz music and of course, ESPN Radio.

The trip to Huntsville from Houston is approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The fact that the gas was still close to full was really impressive to me.

As I arrived on the SHSU campus in Huntsville, I saw that they were constructing new buildings.

And ate at the old Humphrey’s Bar and Restaurant and saw that the company had repainted the outside of the store.


A few days later, I decided to drive the avalon to the LSC-Montgomery campus to see what has changed and also see one of my former career counselors on the SHSU satellite campus adjecent to the community college.

SHSU opened the satellite campus in 2012 and it was truly awesome to let the career counselor know what has been happening in my business career since moving to the Houston area.


And of course, I had the opportunity to interact with the public relations representative, Carolina Guana, Vice President (Multicultural/Hispanic practice) at Allison+Partners, Greg Thome, Regional Communications Manager for Toyota and other influencers who were part of the Toyota Press Tour during the Houston Rockets matchup against the Sacramento Kings at the Toyota Center in downtown houston.

What I learned during the week with the avalon is the importance of business colloboration between the Toyota Corporate Office and the Gulf Coast Toyota Distributors (GSTD), which has been in business since 1969.

The representative from the dealership explained that the Gulf Coast Toyota is it’s own business and they have build a strong presence in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

Gulf Coast Toyota also have done great work in the communities in the states where they serve.

What I also learned is that Gulf Coast Toyota was responsible for getting the naming rights of the Toyota Center, where the Rockets play their home matchups during the National Basketball Association (NBA) season and the naming rights for Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, the home of the FC Dallas soccer team and the site of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivison (FCS) National Championship matchup.

What I can tell you is that Toyota has stepped outside the box to contact bloggers and social media influencers in addition to the tradional media because they understand the changes that are happening in the media world.

They also understand the importance of customer service and they strive to provide solutions that will ease the concerns of their customers.

I have a strong intuition that more and more businesses will be turning to bloggers, podcasters and social media influencers in the near future when they are launching their new products and services.

And thanks to the week long loan of the Toyota Avalon Car, I had the opportunity to take a “break” from Houston, Texas.

December 12, 2016  

Providing Value To Your Community

By Cheval John

December 11th, 2016

I had the honor of interviewing Rachel Miller on What’s The Word? about a month ago as she shared her story about becoming a social media strategist.

It was a dream come true because Ms. Miller has played an important role in my journey to become more proficient as a social media specialist and running my business, Vallano Media, LLC.

She was also the co-host with Brian Fanzo and Christin Kardos serving as the moderator of one of the most popular Twitter Chats at the time, #sbizhour.

I had interviewed Mr. Fanzo on the show early last year.

A few months later, I had interviewed Mrs. Kardos about her career as a community manager.

The story of how I discovered the awesome trio of #sbizhour happened in 2014 after I had quit a large retail chain I worked at for about four years while I was building my business (I submitted my two week notice to the human resource department there).

I was at the tail end of finishing my time as a freelance sports writer for the Huntsville Item as I was about to move to the Houston area at the end of July of 2014.

I heard about Twitter chats from people I was following on the social media platforms.

One of the Twitter chats I had discovered was #sbizhour, which was called #sshour in it’s first year of existence.

I saw how they ran the show as a Twitter chat and a Google Hangout and was really impressed by their multi-tasking skills.

As they changed the name from #sshour to #sbizhour in 2015, the Twitter chat got even more popular and was always trending on Twitter.

At the same time, live video was starting to get more popular thanks to Meerkat and Periscope.

I had no idea that they had moved their show to the live streaming platform called Blab later that year.

And when I got use to #sbizhour being streamed live on blab, I found out that the social media platform saved the audio and video of the live stream show if it was recorded.

That opened my eyes to the possibility of letting my audience see the live recording of What’s The Word? and even interact with the guest after the show was over.

It was because of Ms. Miller, Mr. Fanzo and Mrs. Kardos that I am now recording most of the shows on my business page on facebook live via huzza.io.

As #sbizhour continued to grow in popularity, each of the co-hosts has gotten more business opportunies for themselves.

Ms. Miller became a community manager for Pure Matter, a company co-founded by Bryan and Courtney Kramer.

Mr. Fanzo had gotten more speaking opportunities at major conferences including Social Media Marketing World.

And Mrs. Kardos became the community manager for Jay Baer

As the workload got extra for the trio, they decided that it was best to shut down #sbizhour after almost two years of providing value to their community.

What I can tell you is that Ms. Miller, Mr. Fanzo and Mrs. Kardos accomplished a lot in the short time of hosting #sbizhour than many businesses have done in their entire existence because:

1. They listened to the needs of their community

2. They were transparent with their community

What would happen if many businesses followed the example of Ms. Miller, Mr Fanzo and Mrs. Kardos in providing value to their potential customers?

You can leave your comment below

November 20, 2016  

Creating A Winning Culture In Your Company

By Cheval John

November 19th, 2016

The #HTownTakeOver reignited after the University of Houston (UH) football team defeated then No.5 Louisville 36-10 in front of a record 42,822 fans at TDECU Stadium on Thursday night.

The football matchup was broadcast in front of a national television audience on ESPN and a national radio audience on ESPN Radio.

This Tweet by KPRC 2 sports reporter, Lainie Fritz, who captured the storming of the field after UH’s victory.

And ESPN had one of the best live streaming thursday night viewership this season due to this matchup

The campus has been a scene of a winning culture since Houston’s coach Tom Herman took over the team in December of 2014.

Since Herman’s arrival, UH has a record of 22-3 with an American Athletic Conference championship and a Peach Bowl win over Florida State University.

What is more impressive is that UH’s success has taken over the city of Houston

In a city that has plenty of professional sports teams, UH has found a way to get their football team into the spotlight.

UH has had success under previous football coaches like Kevin Sumlin and their softball team have been extremely successful since they began in 2001.

However, the recent success of UH’s football team seems to be in another level.

One could argue that UH’s recent rise to prominence started when they achieved the Tier One Status in 2011 by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education under the leadership of Chancellor Renu Khator.

With the Tier One status, UH were able to bring in world class professors and recruit future college students who were elite in their respective high schools from around the world.

From there, they were able to secure the funds to build the 40,000 seat TDECU stadium over the same grounds of the demolished Robertson Stadium in time for the 2014 football season.

That first year in the new stadium, Houston finished with an 8-5 record.

However, the season was considered disastrous due to the inaugural home opening loss to UTSA resulting in the firing of Tony Levine.

UH administration understood that if they wanted to take their football program to the next level in their new stadium, they had to bring in leadership who would bring in a culture of winning.

That was why they hired coach Herman to lead their football program because he played a role in helping Ohio State win a national championship under the new College Football Playoff format as an offensive coordinator for coach Urban Meyer.

Coach Herman instilled a winning culture at UH and the entire university community was onboard with the #htowntakeover movement.

The average home attendance at TDECU stadium have increase from 33,980 in 2015 to 38,953 this year.

UH administrators are trying to keep their coach from leaving the football team as major collegiate football teams are trying to hire him away from their school.

University of Texas seems to be the front runner to poach coach Herman away according to this ESPN report that the Longhorn’s most powerful boosters are trying to get Charlie Strong fired

Though UH have already increased coach Herman’s salary to $3 million a year, it seems like the money will not be enough.

The UH fans can hope that coach Herman will stay due to the stability of the UH administration who only want the best for their faculty and staff.

The above story showcases that as a business owner, you must:

1. Create a winning culture in your company

2. Allow your employees to shine in their respective roles

3. Avoid a power struggle (like the University of Texas boosters) that could tear your company apart

When you create a culture that allows your employees to shine in their roles, you will end up winning in the long term because they will go out of their way to promote you.

In the same manner as UH, customers will see your company as a place where people can grow their skills and positive recognition from outside sources will find you.

Have you created a winning culture like UH? You can leave your comments below.

November 3, 2016  

The Win That Shook The Baseball World

By Cheval John

Just for today, I am taking a break from the National Non-fiction Writing Challenge month because I am in a different world right now.

The reason being is because the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last night in a crazy Game 7 against the Cleveland Indians in Cleveland, Ohio.

Many might not know that I am a lifelong Cubs fan and I have never been to the city of Chicago.

I was close to visiting the Windy City earlier this year, but thing just fell through.

Now you might wondering how a person from St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands who have never been to Chicago, be a life-long Cubs fan?

I will explain.

Though St. Croix does not have a professional sports team like cities here in the states, growing up we had sports teams to choose from.

What I mean is that on our cable television channels, we had Turner Broadcasting Station, which was the home of the Atlanta Braves, a station which broadcast the New York Mets and of course, WGN TV-Chicago which broadcast the Cubs and at times, the White Sox and the Bulls.

For some reason, I choose to follow the Cubs because watching the baseball home matchups at Wrigley Field felt like I were in a backyard neighborhood where people gathered to hang out with friends.

And seeing some of the great baseball players like Ryne Sandberg, Shawon Dunston, Andre Dawson, etc. putting in their best effort to win a matchup for the Chicago Cubs nation.

And of course, the late great Haray Caray, who brought excitement to the baseball game with his calls of “It Could Be, It Is” on homerun calls and “Cubs Win, Cubs Win” after they defeated an opponent in the matchup.


To add, the famous “Seventh Inning Stretch” which Caray led the fans and viewers to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”

I grew accustomed to the Cubs losing because it was as if you expected something wrong was going to happen and they all of a sudden break your heart.

But no matter what, I stayed loyal to the Cubs despite the long suffering while watching other teams compete for the chance to win the World Series.

When I moved to Texas 17 years ago and seen the evolution of a great city like Houston, I stayed loyal to the Cubs because that was the right thing to do.

I honestly was wondering what would it be like when the Chicago Cubs would finally win the ultimate prize in baseball since 1908.

It seemed like everyone of us would have seen the Cubs win back in 2003 when they where 6 outs away from advancing to the World Series and finally seen them win the championship.

However, the Cubs collapsed and lost to the Florida Marlins in the National League Championship where many fans like myself blamed Steve Bartman for the loss.

I want to tell Mr. Bartman that I am sorry for blaming him for the Cubs loss in 2003 and that he is a true Cubs fan despite the vitriol that he had to deal with for a long time.

Seeing the Boston Red Sox breaking their own curse by winning the World Series in 2004 and then the White Sox winning in 2005 against the Houston Astros give us hope that we can break the drought of achieving the ultimate prize.

When the Tribune Company sold the team to the Ricketts in 2009, you had a sense that a championship was around the corner.

Then the hiring of Theo Epstein, the architect of the Red Sox team who won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, and Joe Maddon, who took a losing Tampa Rays team and made them contenders for World Series championships, solidified that a winning culture was about to be established.

Slowly, but surely, the Cubs made it back to the post-season in 2015 and made some strides including defeating the Pittsburg Pirates in the Wild Card matchup and beating the arch-rival St. Louis Cardinals to advance to the NLCS, where they fell short to the eventual WS running up, Mets.

This year, they were the favorites and won 103 matchups and the central division title.

The pressure was on for the Cubs to make history and break a 108 year drought as they had to go through a San Francisco Giant team, who won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

When the Cubs, who had a 2-1 lead in the National League Division Series (NLDS), were trailing the Giants 5-2 leading up to the ninth inning in Game 4, I honestly thought that they were going to lose and then were probably collapse again.

But when Anthony Rizzo started the inning with a single, hope started to replace doubt.

Then they continued to put runners on base and optimism of a comeback against the Giants was a strong possibility.

All of a sudden, they scored 4 runs and defeated the Giants 6-5 to win the NLDS and break their chance of winning the title this year.

You knew that it was not going to be easy to beat the Dodgers because they had that fighting spirit due to the leadership of Dave Roberts, who was part of the 2004 Red Sox team.

However, they made it through and made it back to the World Series for the first time since 1945 to face the Indians.

It was awesome to see the Cubs in the World Series and break that so-called “Billy Goat” curse.

Though it was cool to see them in the ultimate championship series, I wanted them to win it all.

The Indians were looking to win their first World Series themselves since 1948 and it was an epic matchup.

I honestly felt it was our turn to win the championship because the city of Cleveland broke their 52 year championship drought due to the Cavaliers coming back from 3-1 to defeat the Golden State Warriors.

It seemed like the Indians had the Cubs number as they were leading 3-1.

But I had a strong intuition that if the Cubs won Game 5 at Wrigley Field, that they were going to win the championship.

Once the Cubs won Game 5, it was new life.

And the Cubs went on to tie the World Series at 3 matchups a piece, setting up the crazy Game 7 that probably made me age to 86.

When the Cubs had a 6-3 lead, it was like everything was falling into place for a win.

Then the Indians tied the matchup at 6 due to an RBI single and a two-run line drive home run by Rajai Davis and I was speechless and numb.

But for some reason, I was just more hopeful than ever and that 17-minute rain delay was very pivotal.

The Cubs scored two pivotal runs due to RBI hits by World Series MVP Ben Zobrist and Miguel Montero for an 8-6 lead.

And with two outs and the Indians trailing 8-7, the batter hit a ground ball to where Kris Bryant got the baseball and threw it to Rizzo for the World Series Clinching out that sent the city of Chicago into a celebration frenzy.

At long last, we as Chicago Cubs fans don’t have to hear anymore about the last time they won a World Series again.

At the same time, we remember the long time fans, former Cubs baseball players who passed on without seeing their team capturing the World Series.

Now that this part of the story is complete, here are a few lessons that many of us business owners and professionals can learn from the 2016 Chicago Cubs team.

1. Ownership Have To Invest In Their Company

The Tribune Company, who in their brilliance made the Cubs a national team, did not fully invest the money into the iconic Wrigley Field. When Ricketts bought the team, he and his family fully invested in the team and made the organization a great place to work.

2. Find The Right People

Ricketts knew he had to bring in an executive who had fresh ideas to invigorate the Chicago Cubs organization and that is why Epstein was the perfect choice due to his previous track record of turning around the Red Sox. From there, Epstein hired Maddon as the manager and the rest is history.

3. Have A Winning Attitude

Epstein brought in the correct baseball players who had a strong winning attitude and providing them with the resources to compete against the best teams in Major League Baseball.

To conclude, a business must have leaders who care about the well-being of their business and the people who work for them.

If they don’t treat their employees correctly and allow their environment to be toxic, their business will end up failing overtime because their employees will not want to work for people who don’t give a flying leap.

When leadership actually cares about their employees, a winning attitude will occur and in the same manner, that company will break through to victory and be like the 2016 Chicago Cubs.

“Go Cubs Go”

October 17, 2016  

Houston Has Arrived In The Collaboration Age

By Cheval John

The Houston Dynamo wanted to give their fans a win in the final home match of the 2016 Major League Soccer (MLS) season.

The Dynamo fell short after ceding a 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy in front of 21,085 people on Fan Appreciation Day.

Dynamo coach Wade Barrett shared some of his frustration with the media when the team could not get points at home since taking over the team midseason.

Houston played hard against Los Angeles and nearly closed out the matchup with a draw.

Midway through stoppage time in the first half, Joe Willis made two crucial saves that kept the matchup scoreless.

However, Los Angeles got the break that they needed in the 72nd minute when Alan Gordon knock the rebound in the back of the net.

Those type of breaks help great teams to win a matchup.

Los Angeles coach Bruce Arena give Houston a lot of credit for playing his team tough throughout the matchup.

Despite the disappointment that the city of Houston will not be hosting a matchup during the MLS playoffs, they have a lot to look forward to when Partnership Tower (PT) opens up to the public on Wednesday.

The PT is what many in the Greater Houston Partnership (GHP) calls “the front door” to the city of Houston.

And the people are not lying because the tower is strategically located in front of Minute Maid Park, connected by sky bridge to the George R. Brown Convention Center and a train ride to BBVA Compass Stadium, where the Dynamo and the Houston Dash play their home matchups.

Businesses and organizations can get an awesome view of Discovery Green Park, where most of the festivities during Super Bowl week will take place.

The PT is now the home of the GHP, Houston First, the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, Houston Hotel and Lodging Association and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, which gives them more opportunity to work together to bring in more visitors to the city.

Jamey Rootes, who is the Houston Texans president and is serving a one year term as chair of the GHP has every reason to feel truly confident about Houston going to the next level due to PT.

“When the Partnership leads a business delegation overseas, we are received in spaces that reflect the nature of the region and country, which instantly builds a memorable experience as well as the host’s credibility” Rootes said. “Partnership Tower will enable visiting business leaders and dignataries to experience many of the things that make Houston so special.”

PT has elevated Houston to another level of a unique city.

When people was taking a photo with Tap Snap, many could see the backdrop of downtown houston.

And people will see all of what Houston represents inside PT with the Houston Wall

The project to build the two floors of PT cost 8.5 million dollars.

Five companies provided the funding for the PT: CenterPoint Energy, Phillips 66; Reliant, an NRG company, Silver Eagle Distributors and the Texas Medical Center.

Mr. Rootes used a football analogy to describe the leadership of the five companies who made PT possible.

“This is a very special group of leaders; they understand the need and they know this is a great time to make an extra investment in Houston. When big things happen in Houston, you can be sure forward-looking, community-minded leaders are calling the plays, Rootes said.

It is great that the business leaders were able to come together to build a place that would allow Houston’s leading organizations to be in one place where they can collaborate on making the fourth largest city in the USA a leading destination in the state of Texas.

Small businesses can follow the lead in working together in order to succeed in the marketplace because they are constantly competing against the giant companies.

And once the Super Bowl arrives next year, visitors will see a more “globalized” Houston due to the major improvements to the city.

That is why Houston will continue to be the forward thinking city that it has established itself to be for the better.

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