Sales are indeed accelerating, and interest is picking up with almost every interaction I have with people.
I gave a demo last night to 15 people. Afterward, 5 stepped forward and asked for my card. "My high school's marching band needs this..." and "My new start-up needs this to manage the people we're bringing on..." and "I work with hospitals and we could really use this..."
I gave a demo yesterday to a woman who bought it for her organization. We met at Panera. After I finished my demo, the woman at the adjacent table said, "I'm sorry, but I overheard what you have there, and before you leave, do you have time to show me your product?"
If you go here and click the Events button, you'll be able to see the first public version of 247Toolset's Event Calendar.
I've got more work to do on it, and some tweaks, but it works fine. And from the demos that I've been doing, the calendar and its RSVP system are moving sales forward at a strong clip. I had two sales yesterday, and I think in the next month I'll average one sale a day, which is almost enough to make this my full-time job. When I finish the work on the calendar and implement the email newsletter functionality, I suspect I'll have driven enough value into the platform to make that happen.
April is when I'll work on the payment processor (credit card, PayPal, Dwolla, and manual entry) and incorporate that with the calendar, which will give it the ability to handle tickets. It will allow the administrator to create multiple options for each event - such as attending the seminar ($100), or attending the seminar and the dinner ($150).
End of May is when I hope to the tiered options for events up and running.
And June is when I begin writing the donations / fundraising module. One non-profit and one politician that own 247Toolset have indicated that they want input into the development of that piece. Sat and talked with one of them yesterday for about an hour. I have a pretty good idea of what I need to provide.
All of that functionality for $19.95 a month. I just need to keep driving value into it.
Said another way, the media loves failure. Failure sells.
America's Funniest Home Videos and Wipeout chronicle the epic stumble. Most successful action movies showcase killing. When corporate titans and politicians fall from heights on high, it's front and center.
Failure is delicious. Kitchen Nightmares succeeds because you simply can't believe how filthy that walk-in cooler was. The nightly news covers disaster and mayhem more than anything else. YouTube loves Charlie Sheen and tsunami footage.
You gonna fail? Let me get my camera.
But...
The better story is the climb to success. It used to be that we esteemed the person possessing competence and composure. Now we make heroes of those who make a peculiar "talent" of the public bellyflop and we shine unwanted light on victims of tragedy.
I wrote about something Frederick Douglass said long ago. His words are worth reading.
Today, I wrap up the RSVP functionality in 247Toolset's robust calendar of events / event management module. This going on while having to get two projects out for clients over the weekend...
But as I put this together, I have to consider every request I can recall from people about working with a calendar of events. The payments system won't come online until sometime in May, but other than that, there's the list of features requested:
Easy-to-enter recurring events
Cancellation management
Mass messaging attendees by email or text
Behind-the-scenes staffing and task management
Joining an organization's calendar to several others
Geographic and descriptive search
Restricting admin privileges to event entry only
Event capacity management
Allow for private and invitation-only events
All of that should be in the rollout on Monday.
In May, tiered payments will be allowed. Later, that payment system will work with the donation / fundraising module to be rolled out in August, which will integrate with events and email campaigns within 247Toolset.
To get to all of this - because it's a lot to consider - I have to do plenty of thinking. No coding, no anything - just what I call "feet on the desk" time.
To some, that might look like doing nothing. But in my head, scenario after scenario plays out, juxtaposed against the data schema, thinking through the usability of the system.
And I have to say that all of the effort is creating a mighty powerful calendar system. As I'm playing with and testing its capabilities, it does more than many calendars I've used. I'm excited to show off its features in future demos.
ETC: That was a thing. RSVP became pretty much a complete ticketing management system.
If you want to have impact and influence, be where you need to be. No whining when you're away from the action despite having plenty of time to be in the thick of it.
I'm having some amazing discussions lately with people looking at 247Toolset. One guy said he wanted to buy it as his own personal LinkedIn. Kinda cool.
But going forward in the company, when I start adding employees, I'll migrate my role to that of Chief Listening Officer. Hearing how the market wants this platform to solve problems for them is riveting.
I've often thought that I might write a book on business listening. I have a title and a tagline in mind...
The dumbest business move in the world seems to me to be when you look at the market and you say "No." In this economy, who can afford that response?
Unfortunately, we see polls almost daily about this politician's popularity and that politician's popularity. If we elect people to become leaders, it's impossible to lead and remain popular. A leader has to make hard choices. Someone will be hurt by the decisions made. The more decisions made, the greater the pool of those hurt, and the more unpopular the leader is.
That's inevitable.
It's no secret that I disagree with President Obama on many issues, but in the areas where he wanted to push change, it was change he pushed and change he got. He telegraphed many of the changes that have come to pass when he was a candidate, such as his plans for energy costs to "necessarily skyrocket."
Did that get a lot of play in the media in his campaign? No. But guess what - you're seeing that philosophy played out today in higher gas prices. His refusal to issue permits for offshore drilling constricts our ability to rely on ourselves for oil and gas, therefore we're at the mercy of others. He told us that would be his plan, he's executing that plan, and his choice to do so will upset those who are affected by it and disagree with it.
That's the nature of leadership - you make hard choices.
Similarly, in Wisconsin we see Scott Walker carry out the plans that he communicated in his campaign for governor. Are they unpopular? Increasingly so. But to achieve a balanced budget, he's doing what he believes he needs to do.
A leader has to make hard choices, or they're simply not leading. It is what it is. If you don't like the leader, then critique the leader, galvanize people against the leader, and seek to change the leader. For the time being, that person is in the position of leadership.
The final questions in the evaluation of any leader are:
Did the leader correctly assess the situation?
Did the leader take the appropriate action?
Did the leader succeed in implementing the appropriate action?
Polls are a really lousy way of conducting that evaluation. Skewed by samples, the way the question is worded, the answers allowed, and the choice of what to publish in the polling results leaves the results to be sketchy. Personally, I find it necessary to dig into a poll's methodology. That extra effort makes me disregard more and more polls.
Further, the outcome of the change sought by a leader is more important than the process.
Said another way, childbirth sucks, but the baby rocks.
What's important to understand is whether or not the change pursued has any historical or logical basis to recommend it as a course of action.
I know a lot of people who voted for Obama who are now shocked at the outcome he's producing. Gotta tell ya - he's pretty much doing what he said he would do, which is why I started talking about it way back then. To those folks, I've told them to pay attention next time.
Likewise, there are plenty of people in Wisconsin getting irritated with Scott Walker's process. But if the result is less debt for the state of Wisconsin and a balanced budget, I think most will have a hard time arguing with that outcome.
Some of our nation's most celebrated leaders were at times very unpopular. What spelled their ultimate recognition as great and good leaders were the long-term results of their leadership. Before election, what's important to know is what they intend to do and how they intend to do it. And then to understand that the process of change is often difficult and at times riddled with mistakes. Patience with that course is often hard for people who don't have the stomach for it.
Freedom makes people uncomfortable. At least, that's the conclusion I draw.
Some on the right side of the political spectrum don't like the idea of people having social freedom.
Some on the left side of the political spectrum don't like the idea of people having economic freedom.
Now, when I use the word freedom, I'll borrow the dictionary's definition, just to let you know that I'm not choosing my own definition:
Exemption from external control, interference, regulation.
The power to determine action without restraint.
The absence of or release from ties, obligations.
Freedom means that I have the right to determine my own actions and direction in life, and I do not owe anyone anything to which I haven't explicitly obligated myself.
That right there makes some people really uncomfortable.
There are some people on the right who want to use the government to restrict your behavior, even if your behavior is among consenting adults.
There are some people on the left who want to use the government to obligate your personal property, even though they had nothing to do with your voluntary exchange of work to gain that property.
To get around that discomfort, someone abandoned the words "freedom" and "independence" and coined new terms, such as "conservatism" and "progressivism."
A lot of folks have now just inherited those words without giving much thought to them. If you're one of them, I ask you: how do you feel about freedom?
To help find complimentary colors for a given hex color, I created a Color Lab for me and my son, Aaron, to use when setting up 247Toolset portals. It can convert between hex and RGB values, and when getting the hex value, it will show the color variations.
