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And now, we have Lynette Young. [Yea, Yea!]
I hear some "yeas" in the audience, so I guess some of you either know Lynette or you've seen her speak before.
She's a star speaker, she's spoken at many large events, and she's given a version of this talk elsewhere, but an abbreviated version from what I understand so you get the full thing today.
She has been a blogger since before probably the word blogging existed and she's been doing this for a long time so she has a lot of knowledge to impart.
I really find it fascinating to know that she has 1.5 million followers on Google Plus.
I don't know anybody who has even 100,000 followers on anything so that's pretty fascinating and pretty amazing maybe she'll tell you how that happened.
And I guess that's enough intro so let's bring up Lynette and a round of applause for her. [applause]
Thank you for having me. I've spoken at Princeton Library quite a number of times over the years.
Jamie and I have been friends, but we can't figure out how long now. It's just one of those things when you meet and your worlds blend together.
So thank you very much for having me. Tonight's talk is based on something that I was actually asked to do last month at a large conference called new media expo.
And, the topic was presented to me by the owner of the conference who I've known for a couple of years now, and he said, "Lynette, can you explain to me; I want you to do a big keynote talk on why
or how to become an 'overnight success.'" And I looked at him and I was a little disappointed because I'm like, I've been in this industry since 1989 and how am I an 'overnight success'? But, you know, it's funny how that happens.
So, what this talk is really going to be about today is,
it's not going to be my typical I'm going to get in front of a room and teach you "the three best mechanisms to go through and use Google Plus," because that's obviously my power platform right now.
I'm gonna talk about a little bit of stories and a little bit of history for me. And that's the 25 years, because that's about how long I've been doing this professionally.
So, in there there's gonna be some hopefully lessons learned and hopefully some ideas to spark your own interests about what to use to pull from your past to present and grow your future.
So, I just re-did my slides so I'll see if I remember what the heck is in them.
So, a little bit about me, in case you don't know, and this is part of the story is today, is I'm a business owner, right? So, I own a company called Purple Stripe Productions.
Normally my hair is purple.
When I left "corporate", you know, because I used to work up here, up and down Route 1 [in] Finance and Pharma, oh my." My guarantee for not coming back to that space when I left in 2000 was to dye my hair purple
because there is no way that they would take me back if I had a bright purple hair, right? Could you imagine me at Merrill Lynch with bright purple hair? It just wouldn't happen.
But, I've been on my own for quite some time and during that time, you know, you reinvent yourself, so that's part of what this story is.
I'm also a published author. My first book, "Google Plus for Small Business" is really not that exciting of a title.
But, that's pretty much what I work with. I work with small businesses, agencies, in house, that kind of thing.
To help them get to the next level, to mix that creativity and the technology because that is my background. I consider myself a Mar/Tech professional, I don't know that word really exists or not.
I've seen Mar/Com. But I say Mar/Tech because I ...
It's kind of a hybrid between marketing and technology. I like to disclose that I am not a programmer.
So, when people talk to me and they, and I identify as a "geek" or a "tech" and they go well what language? And, I'm like "I don't program." And, they're like, "Well, you're not a tech".
And, that's kind of a little bit of the issue that I have with the industry in general. I can get around Word Press pretty solid, but that's about it.
I am a huge Google Plus fan girl and part of this story today will be about why I am considered an overnight success in this platform and why this is complete bunk.
I speak a lot and I am a geek.
Total hardcore geek, and I am raising two geeks in my household, one is 6 and one is 12.
So, with this I want to talk about the idea of an iceberg, right? So, we saw in the first picture, an iceberg, and I would say don't Wikipedia this because my numbers aren't exact,
is that 90% under the of the waterline; under, you know, it's under the water, and only 10% of an iceberg is above.
Titanic, we should know better than that, right? You don't always see what you're going to hit.
With this idea of an iceberg and, it's always been this professional drive for me, that everything that I do is to build that 90% under the waterline.
Right? So, that's the mantra that goes in my head every day when I get up, every day when I work with clients, every day when I tell them what they should (you know), mentor them on what what they should be doing.
What are you doing to build your iceberg on under the waterline? The more work you do under, the more than 10% is going to rise above, right?
So, you can't get more on top, you can't get more visible, more success, more whatever you're looking for, if you don't build your base.
That's really what my quarter century, "holy cow that sounds like a long time", but a quarter century in this industry has been about.
So, the first story I want to tell you is something about perception.
I work in social media, right? This digital marketing online and the technology behind it or that runs parallel with it.
My background is actually as a network engineer.
I started working professionally in tech in 1989, because I'd just gotten out of high school and I didn't necessarily have the money yet for college.
My original plan was to go to college for mortuary science and I did for a little while because I was petrified of people.
[Laughing] Right? So like where is better to work than a morgue, right?
If you're afraid of people or if they're dead, it's OK.
So, I did that for little bit, but then I had part time jobs and such and wound up literally the weekend after I graduated high school...
I was trying to make money to go to college and I installed my first token ring network, right? So, that's how far back I go. I still have beacon errors in my dreams every once in a while, if anyone goes back that far back.
But, this was my base and I figured, "Well I'm just going to work in tech so I can make some money so I can go to college, so I can stay away from people."
And, that didn't quite work out for me, so I said, "Well, what's the other option?" I'm petrified of people.
I had zero social skills, and this is what I do for a living now.
And, technology, right? 'cause I'm gonna work at a computer and not talk to people it's gonna be awesome.
Well, now, this is where we all are now, right? Tech is people at this point.
I went through a couple of jobs and when I decided I was going to make technology and working in on my career.
I began to work for a company.
Wound up dropping out of college because the courses that they taught me in college were not nearly as advanced when I was doing for myself in my job.
I was 23 years old at this point. I had gone through... I think that was my second or third job at that point, because I quickly outgrew them.
Twenty-three years old, working in a department of 40 people -- all programmers out there with three women: myself and two secretaries or admins.
And, that's what we did. And I was a networking engineer, I took them from token ring to Ethernet, and that was so exciting for me, and we were on, you know, I was a server admin we had Netware it was great! I was all certified.
I thought this was my path to success. What I didn't realize is that what I was building for myself was this perception of what other people thought of me.
So, here I am 22-23 years old.
I am working at a company, and I'm not getting anywhere.
I'm doing employee reviews, and I'm noticing, because I'm an idiot at this point to be completely honest, that everyone that reports to me is making more money than me.
They don't all have college degrees, so there wasn't that. And they all had better titles.
I was like, "Well this is ridiculous." And me being 23 and stupid and arrogant, I marched right into my boss' boss' office, right? And march in and I'm like "I'm gonna fix this.
I'm gonna get business cards with some kind of real fancy VP title on it", right? At that point I had already had another job offer for nearly double my salary, but I felt a sense of loyalty to this company.
They had really taken me in when, you know, I started kind of like at the help desk, and I quickly wound up managing all of these programmers when I wasn't a coder myself.
Worked it through that way. So, I said "Something's not right here. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna march myself and I'm gonna demand a new business card." So, I go in and then I sit down.
And, my boss had this beautiful mahogany desk with the glass top and it was ver... you know, he looked like an attorney's office with all books behind him and everything.
So, I sit down. I have my resignation letter, I should tell you, in my hand just in case things go bad, right? So, I'm not willing leave this job that I'm at, because I feel a sense of loyalty, and I feel like I owe them something for working there.
So, even though the job is going to pay me almost double what I'm making, I'm not going to leave. If he gives me a new business card with a better title on it, I'm not even asking for more money then I'm gonna stay.
Just in case I've got my backup plan. So, I go in there and I sit down, and I tell him, "These; this is what is going on, I've done all the reviews, I've been nothing but stellar in my position here.
I would like new business cards with a better title on it." And he says, "Sit down." Okay. "I'm getting new business cards!"
And he goes, "Do you know how arrogant you are walking in here and tell... And, I wasn't really arrogant I was being polite about it, 20 years in hindsight I'll say I was arrogant.
And, he said, "Do you know how arrogant you are? You walk in here and you think you're better than everybody else because you want a title that's better than them? Do you know how much business cards cost
to print?" [laughter] I was like, "Whah..t?" He's like, do you.... He had this big brass "P", I'll never forget it, in fact one day I'm gonna buy one for myself,
but like a bookend, and he had this big brass "P"; must have weighed about 10 pounds sitting on his desk, and he goes, Do you know what that P stands for?" I said Paul?" because of his first name. He said, "No.
The P stands for 'perception', Lynette." This is still to this day, 20 years later, the best story.. the best lesson I've ever learned my life. He goes, "The perception is the view, that you are better than other people,
that you feel more entitled, and you feel elite because you think your name should be on a card with, you know, a better title (and such)." And I felt horrible and I sat there literally with tears coming down my eyes Well, he must"
think that I haven't done a good enough job at this position yet because the perception he has of me is that I'm not fully baked yet; like I'm not a good enough professional, or I'm not good at my job that I'm not entitled to have a better
I said, "OK." So, I'm sitting there in the chair, crumpling up this resignation letter.
Because I'm like, "I can't leave this job yet because I still have something to prove." How naive is that, right? Turned around to me and says, "Lynette, you know what else that 'P' stance for?"
I said, "Paul?" And he said, "No." And he said the "word," and I promised my husband I would never say the "word" in public; that I won't.
But, I will just say it is a female anatomy part. And he call that word to me, to my face, and leaned over his desk, and he called me ...
that word ... I won't even say it. And, I was so enraged with him, because he said well that's all you'll ever be ...
is a female in a dress, but he used that word.
And, he said, "You will never make one penny more than I allow you to make.
And you will never have a job title better than what I allow you to have, because you are only a woman in tech." I lost my mind.
[laughter] I picked up that brass "P", and I know it weight ten pounds, because I threw it.
I threw it at him and I'm embarrassed to say that it is not the first time that I've thrown something at someone that I work with. This happened three times in my life. But I picked it up and threw it at him, because he had the audacity to tell me
that it was his job to determine the perception of what other people thought of me. And, he was only allowing me to be a certain type of person, because that was his perception of me.
Well, needless to say I took that resignation letter, I thew it at him, walked myself out of the door and that was the end of that job. I accepted the
new position. And, at the time it was up here at Merrill Lynch, and I went over to Merrill, and I worked my way through the ranks there.
But, what he taught me about perception and self perception and other people's perception of you is so crucial to still how I do business today because I work on the social web, right? Everything is about ego perception of other people.
It's that 10% above the waterline, right? So, you go online, you have your resume, you put stuff out on Twitter, you put things out on Google Plus, you own, you curate everything for just for what people... you want people to see about you.
We only usually put the good stuff out, unless you're some of the people that I follow on Facebook, who are complaining all the time,
but think about that 10% that you put above the waterline, right? You do all this work everyday, whenever you curate what you're talking about, and you form
So, if you're talking about what you ate for lunch every day, well that's people's perception of you, that you're out, you know, you're a foodie and you're kind of"
cruising around, and you talk about work things all the time or posing interesting questions, or helping people's solutions..
that's what you're willing to be perceived as.
And, it is very important for me and my line of work and what I do,
that people understand that you have to be well rounded when you put your stuff out there, and this perception of others, because you control the initial perception of what people see you as.
Professionally and personally.
So, what Paul taught me before I walked out of this office and I didn't give him stitches, but I'm not still not too sure to this day,
was that this matters. This matters professionally, this matters on the social web, this matters when we are doing work with.. interacting other people, that we have to have to take control of the perception that people have of us.
The funny thing is, is that you could put yourself out there and this is what I love, this quote, "What people in the world think of you is really none of your business."
Because if you put things online, or you interact with other people or you go for a job and you get rejected from the job.
Anything like that. It's not about you, really. It's you can do the very best that you can to put yourself out there.
What the perception is, is sometimes based on, you know, baggage they have themselves, if they had a bad day, whatever, those kinds of things, but..
I see a lot of people with the social web get hung up on what other people see them as, "Well, I hope they think I'm successful,
I hope they think I'm at the top of my game, or I hope you know, I'm talking about enough stuff, or someone will just, you know, drop out of the sky and approach me for a job position, or something like
It doesn't happen but you still have to be very mindful of what you're putting out there.
The next thing is this idea of perseverance.
And, my career took me from that. I loved that job I still.. I loved everything at the job except for that idiot in the corner office.
But, you know I wound up working my way up the ranks. I worked a lot of these companies on Route 1 up here, and I worked in the server rooms, and I was an engineer.. that's.. that was my life, right? I loved computers, I loved networking.
That was what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
When my daughter was born in 2001, I decided before that I was working, you know, the Princeton area kind of had their fill of me so I wound up in New York.
And, I had taken a little bit of time off right after my daughter was born, and I figured, Well OK, I've learned as much as I can possibly learn in the corporate world.
Now I'm gonna go out on my own, and I'm going to have my own business." And back then I was like, "I'm gonna start this Marketing/Technology firm." People didn't know what the hell I do now, let alone
11 years ago, right? Went through all these things, saved up all this money, because I was consulting, and it was just wonderful, and I had this whole perfect life planned.
And, my daughter was born, and she was one month old, and my husband and I were both working.. Well, I had taken my own self imposed maternity leave. My husband was still working in Manhattan."
And, 9/11 hit, right? A month and a day after my daughter was born.
and that morning I had begged my husband to stay home from work because my daughter..
I just say, I'm like you.. she was insane. She was colicky, she cried all the time I had no idea what was going on with this first child of mine.
So he stayed home, and he was pretty ticked about it. Because as a consultant you live by hours, right? And she was... and that was that was September 11th."
So I.. she'll still tell us to this day that she saved her father's life, which is the God's honest truth.
Because he should've been at work that day, and where his building was is now where the Freedom Tower was constructed in Manhattan.
So, if she hadn't stayed home, that would end the end of it. And, so I talk about this story with this idea of perseverance with...
When that happened, my husband no longer had a job. I sure as hell wasn't going back to Manhattan.
I.. I really think I had a bit of a nervous breakdown after, you know, everything that happened. And I said, "I'm just gonna take all of my money that I've saved, and I'm gonna open a scrapbook store."
And, my husband's like, "But you're a tech, what are you talking about?" And I'm like, "I want nothing to do with technology any longer I want people." I'm gonna flip completely on the other side.
So, I took all of my money, all of our money, and I opened a scrap book store.
And, I can tell you right now that I'm a horrible retail store owner. I.. do not give me inventory, do not let me run a point of sale system, I'm horrible at it. I'm really good at helping other people, but I'm horrible about it myself.
But, this idea of perseverance and I said I need to disconnect from everything that we saw leading up to that point, right? So it was technology, we were consultants... I worked at Universal Music.
So, you know, everything was, you know, *** and drugs, and not me, but *** and drugs and this is great this IT, this is amazing, like, I'm in a record company! And it all stopped.
And I completely spun around on my heels and I said I have to do what I have to do which is survive right now. I need to do what I need to do survive for my family
and I need to connect emotionally to other people. So I opened up the scrapbook store over in Hamilton, New Jersey.
Sunk all our money into it in three years. That was gone. And, decided that this was going to be our new life, right? I was gonna be a little shop owner, and I wasn't gonna work in IT any longer.
As my store is failing, because like I said, I suck at running a retail store.
There were three women that came into my store and we use to have these events called the "crop" but I'll call it the "Sewing Circle," but women used to come in.. We'd stayed late at night and drink and eat M&M's and work on our crafting projects.
[laughter] And there were three women that came in and it was a grandmother, a mother and a daughter. And the daughter was my age at this point so you can see where the generations go from there
And all three of them were working on scrapbooks." And, of course, I'd be interested and I'd say, you know....
Meanwhile I'm like, you know, the bill collectors are calling or, you know, I don't how to balance QuickBooks or whatever I'm doing. And my store's crumbling around
me, and I still take the time out and talk to these people, and they taught me this idea of perseverance.
They, all three women, who were either currently are very recently formerly breast cancer, in breast cancer treatment,
right? The grandmother, the mother and the daughter. The mother and the daughter were in treatment together. They would go to chemo together.
and they would come to my store every other week and they would build their books, right? Pictures and memories and stuff, because they're like, "If we die tomorrow, which is very likely,
we want something to leave to other people. We want our memories persevered through everything else." They didn't come in feeling sad for themselves or anything like that. They would laugh and have a good time.
I was like, "Well that's amazing." Like, "That's a really different way of looking it." Here I am feeling sorry for myself because I'd just blew all of our money, and I'd been out of the job market for three years now.
And, the industry's different because of the dot-com bubble that wound up going not too long after that and everything that and there was no place for my husband and I on the world as far as we were concerned to work in tech anymore.
And these three women taught me that... that you could still go back no matter how bad things are and you can still make it through.
And, one of the ladies came back a couple of weeks later and said that she had lost her book, right? This physical book and I said, ""Well, why don't you blog?"""
Because if you put everything online, it's, you know, you can't lose it, right? You back it up it's great.
So from there I started back into my own industry where we are now.
But, this idea "of" persevering through whatever pain point that you have and finding good out of it.
If I wound up never moving forward or wallowing in fact that you know, my industry a youth had falling around me, Or, you know, the market was different and there's no more token ring,
you know, I could have stayed where I was and stayed stagnant. I would not be around. You have to kind of push through everything.
You have to take those ideas of what you learned, you know? And I learned great people management skills, I learned great technical architect.., you know, architecture..
technical architecture and systems architecture through all of those jobs that I had and the career that I had.
And I decided to take back. So after I dumped a $100,000 into the store, and that was gone.
I went back into the marketplace. But now I focused on "outside of the firewall." No more corporate, small- and medium- sized businesses.
But what I realized with that is that what comes around goes around.
I use this quote here to say, "If you're going through Hell keep going." Because it's the last place you want to stay. I see a lot of people right now..
I work with them, I see them, I'm friends with them. They're in this weird place where they have to retool themselves professionally or the language they used is falling out of fashion, or whatever we have.
I was talking to somebody before this. My father-in-law was a COBOL programmer.
And when COBOL fell out of fashion and other things came up, he was like, "Well forget it, I'm not learning anything new." Well he hasn't been employed in like 20 years, I could tell you that.
You know, it's evolve or die.
So, you know, people can go through and want to say "poor me" or are want to say, "Well I want things to be back the way that they should be." I want things to be..
when I was on top of the hill, you know? "When I was king of the hill." That kind of thing.
And, especially in this industry, I'm really, really heart felt about the idea that we have to evolve all the time.
Especially because I work with social technologies, I got into a little bit of a *** match, today, I'll be honest with you, with someone online about how
they just wanna stay on Facebook, and when I realized the company, I have a credit card in my wallet from the company that this is how resistant they were to change.
They weren't persevering with the times, right? They weren't going with the times. They wanted the way things were.
They were literally lamenting over the loss of My Space because they had spent so much money in it.
And I literally just sat on the desk and banged my head and I'm like, "You can't. You can't feel sorry for yourself because the hard work that you did is now gone. You have to get up the next morning, and you have to do something else.
You have to look around, and if it isn't working anymore, you do something else." What is it, the Einstein quote, you know, the definition of "insanity" is keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
I find that so much in this industry.
If I did the same thing that I did five years ago I'd be working in Second Life right now.
[chuckles] So, you remember Second Life? No? I also did, you know, I was a My Space queen, I had, you know, Coca-Cola in there and I was like if I still sat around crying about the fact
that what I was so good at isn't popular anymore I wouldn't have a job right now. I wouldn't have a career, I wouldn't do all these other things.
And, it becomes so difficult in this industry, I feel, Because I've been a part of it for so long.
That It's our way or no way, "It's Java or .NET", It's like everybody picks a side, right? It doesn't have to be that way but, I guess what I'm saying here is this idea of perseverance. You have to go through; you have to move forward.
Because sharks swim. If they don't swim, the sink, right? So the last idea here.
So, I left corporate. In 96-97, I started moonlighting on my own and then once the whole Y2K thing came and they had actually thought the sky was gonna fall and after 9/11 I left. I left completely, and I haven't been back to corporate.
As I said, my hair is normally purple because I want them not to want to take me back.
This idea of technology -- especially in this space that I'm in, in this social web.
The funny thing is is now it's come around to people. And I use this quote, this guy, JC Hutchins.. I actually put his Twitter handle here because he's the only of three that I've quoted that's not dead.
So, you can tweet him.
He says this phrase, like when people tick him off or when people are being extra special great human beings, he's like, "People, man. People." For good or for bad.
And I'm finding that a lot of, and I'm so guilty of it myself that, I started out in technology to hide from people and now the one thing that I want to do and the one thing that I want to
press forward for other people to do in technology is to work with people and not to forget that angle of it.
We all get very busy and I am married to a programmer I get this. Or architect. Sorry, he'd kill me if I call him a programmer.
[laughter] But, you know, this idea that we have to realize what we're doing impacts people's lives, right? It's not just a 5-minute pitch up here for (the) VC. It's not just a really cool widget.
We shouldn't just be doing things because we can. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, right? This is the things that I want you to kind of make you think about a little bit.
About what do you do? and Are you chasing money? Are you chasing technology? Are you chasing, you know, growing your team? Are you chasing whatever you're chasing I want you to stop and think,
What does this have to do with people? You've got this great app that you're building. You've got this great phone, you know, This great application, this great website, this whatever.
What is it at the end of the day that you're going to do from all the history that you bring from behind you? And, I don't care if you're in college or high school, you still have history.
Till you're my age or holder, when you've got decades behind you. Your biggest asset is your ability to communicate with people.
You do it with technology, you do it with yourself. It doesn't matter.
What are you doing everyday that's gonna help somebody else's life? What is your product doing that's gonna help somebody else's life? Are you making an app for the phone that's going to automatically color correct someone's photograph? Well,
yeah, but how is it going to help someone's life? How is it going to help their job? So, I believe strongly that if you remember why you're doing this and that is not for the one's and the zeroes and the bits and the bytes,
that it is for working with people and helping them and being kind of a "human forward" if you want to look at it that way. I think it's very important.
Now, the work that I'm doing right now is all almost all Google Plus based, right? And my 25-year journey of making sure that everything I do is building my base.
It doesn't matter the tech. It doesn't matter the social platform.
My experience transcends all of that, right? I can take my iceberg, and I can move to the next place that I'm good. I still have experience. I still have my 90% underneath.
So, think about what you're doing, what you're building... things that you can take from your past. Skills. Not, not tech, but skills that you can bring forward.
If you're looking to do a different language, if you're looking to kind of pivot your business a bit, look at what you can bring from your past.
The worst thing in the world I think that you can do is look at your resume and think that that's all that your good for is those bullets from points that exist.. it goes way beyond that.
So, the Google Plus thing.
So, when people meet me, or they have any inkling of this artificial, artificially inflated, like, ego that happens on line, they go like, "Wow, you know you're really famous", or
or have people nervous to talk to me and stuff because I've got 1.5 million followers. Well, I actually tried to look it up online to see a picture of what 1.5 million people looks like and I couldn't even find a picture with that many people.
It's kind of an unattainable number.
But, it doesn't matter that I have that many followers. It doesn't matter that I've got, you know, whatever, anywhere on any of the social platforms. It doesn't matter that I have so many employees working for me or there's so many....
It doesn't matter. What it matters that the people that you can touch and the people that you can work with and the people that you can help.
My job is to make sure professionally that people that are in marketing and technology based companies don't forget about the people that they're serving online.
I get calls all the time, you know, especially this guy that I had a fight with today. I hate getting sucked in by the trolls, but sometimes I do.
This idea that Facebook or Twitter or blogging or whenever platform that they're on is the best because that's where their strengths are. And, I'm like, but that's not where you're helping people, that's not where are you're best served,
right? So, of course my expertise I'm trying to bring them over to the Google Plus side of things. The reason why I see people fail there... businesses, brands, whatever...
Is that because they forget that there's people on the other end of the keyboard.
So, what in your life can you do right now tomorrow, because it's kind of late tonight, that you can do to help bring what you do to other people?
So, that's what I'd like you to think about, and if we're gonna go out after words for drinks, I'd love to hear your idea about the one thing that you're going to do tomorrow, that will bring your product or service
So, in parting, because I wanted to kind of make this kind of short and tight because there's a lot of really cool stuff that goes on with this group, is that
when I'd be approached with people and they say will build your base right? Build this 90%, build your experiences, your skills, everything else to rise up.
Well, what happens when other people want to hop on and take a ride with your success, right? Because as, as someone that has some artificial sense of, you know, fame online.
People contact me constantly: businesses, bloggers, brands, you know, the bagel shop down the road;
Can you help me out with Google Plus? I'm sure you'll get it, you know, it's like you go over to somebody's house for the holidays; your family and in the relike can you fix my computer and still get that [laughter Like, know I'm in tech, but "No!" Keyboard person that's not going to happen.
What happens when other people want a ride on with your success? So, you've come up and you've made a name with yourself, and you built your company, you build your skills, or whatever, and other people just wanna show up
and say, "How did you do that? Show me how to do it." Because that's what I get; the "overnight success." Well, Lynnette, all the sudden you're really popular and you know how to use this and you have a certain skill set,
I'll take you out to lunch and you just tell me what you did, so I can do the same thing, right? So, there's no free lunches.
I had someone that...
When the Google Plus platform first came out, I literally joined four hours after the private beta had opened up.
There's a really good friend of mine in California; her husband's a developer over there. All the devs in Google got codes to give out.
I got, I'm like user number 60, or something, if there was such a thing in the Google Plus platform. But, I had run across somebody else that started the platform one week after me.
And, he heckled me from the stage, and he was, like, he sent me e-mails afterwards, and followed up... He goes, "You know, Lynette, if I had just joined when you did,
I would have a million and a half followers, and all this money and fame." And, I'm like, "I didn't get a dollar a person," like, well now I'm up to ten dollars per person. I'd like $10 a follower, that's what I'd like to get paid.
You know this perception of fame, this perception of money of success...
just because of the numbers is kind of dumb. But he was extremely bitter that if only he had joined a week before me he would have all the followers and success and pseudo fame that I did and he's got 166 followers, right? vs. my 1.5 million.
And I'm like, "But you don't have all the other stuff. You can't come on this iceberg with me. I'm not giving you a ride.
I'm not the promote your stuff or teach you my tricks." If there are such a thing because, you don't have the 25 years of experience that it took me to show up on the Google Plus platform to become successful.
I didn't buy my way in.
I didn't. And, you know, there's none of that. It took 25 or 22 years of experience to show up one day and have success.
So, that's the other thing too, is when you go to do something, price your products. I've been going through clients with this they don't know how to price their products.
Because you're not just pricing a product. You're putting your experience with it. So, what's that 90% that you can charge for? What's that 90% that makes you different?
That can be can rise above? And, it's like I said, it's not always people looking for a free ride. Sometimes they're just looking at how to party with you.
So you kind of have to pay it forward, I feel, and help those that you can, and those that appreciate it and those that can't, you just gotta get let go.
So, those are my thoughts, and my experience on the topic.
So, I want to thank you all very much and if you have any questions later, specifically about Google Plus I will take questions.