Yet another reason I think I will abstain from ever seeking the assistance of a VC firm. I think they actually made the poor people in these companies partake in this God-awful video.

Like you, I love to say “yes!”

Those of us that are fortunate enough to be busy working in technology know that opportunities often appear to be endless: We have ideas we want to try, people we want to work with, requests from customers for new features, new hardware and software that seems to appear on a daily basis, new methodologies, partner opportunities, new trends, new customers, new markets… it’s exciting for sure. Saying yes just seems like the natural thing to do, it feels good, and so most of us can’t resist.

Why is it that we can’t resist? My theory is that most of us have a secret belief that we are Superman and that our time is unlimited, so what’s “just one more” project? I first realized this when I was working with someone who couldn’t say “no” to anything. And I mean anything. It was an eye opener for sure.

I’ve found the bottom line for me to be that if I am constantly allowing my attention to be taken over by ever opportunity that floats into my existence, then focusing on the truly important things becomes very difficult. Pretty much impossible.

That’s where the secret power of “No Thank You” comes in.

First, you have to know and dwell on what is truly important. That’s something I hope to address in more detail later. For the purpose of learning the secret power of “No Thank You”, I’m going to assume you and I both know what the truly important things are.

When you have that focus, any new opportunity can be easily viewed through the prism of “how does it fit with what’s really important?” It’s amazing how fast you can make a decision based on that question alone. Sometimes the opportunity will gel perfect and you can give an enthusiastic “hell yes!” and the new tasks and responsibilities will be engaging and fun – as they should be.

After awhile the opportunities that don’t fit so well start to feel like what I imagine Kryptonite feels like to Superman. It’s almost counter intuitive. You would think that saying “No” would feel bad and reduce your strengths, when in fact, it’s the opposite. I finally got it when I read Derek Sivers post on saying no unless you can say “hell yes!”.

The key for me was creating the Successful No. A Successful No is polite. You keep your focus and your attention you don’t insult or tick off the person or persons who wanted you to say yes. Everybody wins. You do that by merely being empathetic to the requesters wants and desires. Or just don’t be a dick. Either one works.

It does not mean saying no because your feeling lazy, overwhelmed, or just don’t like someone. It should never become habit just to say “no” without consideration.

Instead, it’s about saying no when you’re not really that thrilled by the opportunity; if doesn’t make you a little nervous, excited, curious and more alive, it may not be a good fit. It means saying no when you think about the opportunity and you get that tiny little headache and start to wonder if anything will ever change. Those are BIG red flags you should pay attention to.

When you’ve done a Successful No, don’t forget to celebrate it just as much as you celebrate the things you say yes to. More often than not, a Successful No is just as valuable as the things you say “Hell Yes!” to – even if they don’t show up on the balance sheet.

A Successful No has secret powers. It’s like spinach to Popeye. It makes what you say “Hell Yes!” to that much more engaging. It keeps the Kryptonite away. It gets you a tiny bit closer to really being Superman.

“Just thought I’d let you know I got a phone report for the month of august, and we had 236 [calls] from our website number last month!

Back before we hired you we were only getting about 60…”

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to get emails like that from the people we work with! A 393% increase in calls from their new website… that is cool!

If you’ve never heard of it, The Vasa was a Swedish warship built from 1626 to 1628 that didn’t get very far.

King Gustavus Adolphus did not understand, nor did he care about the details of ship building. Yet every time he felt some new pressure or found some new inspiration, he would issue new orders on the size and configuration of the Vasa while it was under construction.

In one such story, the King found out his rival was building ships with two gun decks. Not to be outdone, the King declared “Me Too!” and ordered a second gun deck be added to a ship that was only designed to have one. The subordinates who were building the ship were never given the opportunity to explain why that was a bad idea (amongst the ships numerous other problems), and lacked the courage to confront a man so powerful as the King.

Just one mile into it’s maiden voyage, the Vasa encountered a wind slightly stronger than a breeze. It rolled over and sank.

The ship was mostly forgotten to history until it was located in 1956, and then raised mostly intact, ultimately becoming one of the Sweden’s biggest museums and tourist attractions. It is somewhat of a monument to an Epic Fail, but it’s truly a fascinating historical relic.

The Vasa’s story always serves to remind me several things that are always good to be reminded of:

• People really do want to do their best job, so let them.
• If you don’t understand the details, shut the hell up, or learn them.
• Ignore everybody.
• There is no point to playing the game of “Me Too!”
• Sometimes you have to argue with the King. Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.
• Life is experiences, not things. Even if you are part of an Epic Fail, there is always a chance for immortality!

We’ve added some new sites to the growing list of sites we are developing, marketing and managing, some we even designed: City Wide Mechanical, Rose City BBQ Sauce, Connie Brennan RN, Rose City Canopy, Northern Ground Source, RC Global, Family & Gentile Dentistry, Rose City Sign and many more. We’ve been very busy little bees.

Click here to see the new additions.

Right now we are revamping the websites for two of our favorite customers – we’ll get those up right after they launch.

Thanks to all our new clients – and the ones we’ve been helping for so many years now. We are truly grateful to be a part of your success stories!

Don’t just take out word for it that we can get you real results for your website! Check out what one of our longest running customers, Jim Strandlund of Strandlund Heating and Refrigeration says about us.

“Honestly Larry is one of the best website company/people I have ever worked with!!

His background understanding of how the web works has done wonders for my company. He grasped my idea’s and developed a new website that reached the top of search engine rankings very quickly. He has always been current with suggested updates and or changes to keep my web site current and fresh.

I often hear of other company’s going back to him after they had went elsewhere to develop their sites or for optimization of them. I just did a Google search for Geothermal Minnesota and Podomani has 2 websites in the top 5 positions that they have created! One is for a New organization MNGHPA.ORG which I am currently the president of. I know our industry is very competitive and Larry has done a fantastic job keeping us on top. I hope this helps and I feel you will be very satisfied with Podomani’s services!”

Thank you Jim. Jim has great ideas for his business. We added some and them put them all into motion and helped Jim grow his business – despite being in one of the worst recessions ever. We are in the process of redesigning one of Jim’s websites for him – look for it soon, and let us know if you would like to hear more of what our customers have to say about us.

Most of our clients are small to sized companies, and we like it that way. Sometimes they have an internal IT department, but most times they contract IT services out. Podomani is not in the business of fixing printers, solving internal network problems or cleaning a virus off someones computer. There are plenty of great people out there who are good at that and very much want to do it, so I leave it to them.

In fact, I send some of those companies a lot of business.

On occasion, contracted IT guys and us come into contact over a mutual client. Usually we take care of the website and the web marketing, while they handle the email and hardware. Most times it’s pleasant and we share a lot of common industry information, make new contacts or even a friends and work together to meet the client’s needs. Even when there’s a problem, we share the mutual goal of just getting it taken care of.

Everybody wins.

But on rare occasions it gets adversarial, and Techie Butt Sniffing gets out of control. When a serious problem occurs, the first thing we do here is put all hands on deck, find and fix the problem. Then we check to see if the problem was because of something we did. If it was, we take responsibility, contact the client and tell them exactly what happened. I have never lost a client with this policy. After all, when there is a problem, most people just want to know what happened and what can be done to try and make sure it does not happen again.

Some IT firms I’m afraid, do not have the same policy. When there is a real problem, they see it as a business opportunity to impune the other party and blame the for all the client’s woes. It’s even worse when the problem really was their fault. The urge to cover one’s ass is so strong with some people that it leads to some really unfortunate behavior that includes trying to shift the blame on the other guy.

It never really works. Denigrating anyone else just makes you look bad. Besides that, you’re giving the client bad information so they can’t make informed decisions. You might feel better for a moment that you shifted the blame to someone else. But that’s like wearing yesterday’s underwear. It will bug you and know there is always the chance someone will smell it.

Don’t be that guy. Take responsibility, get the job done, change your underwear and things will be fine.

How do dog’s greet each other? With a quick sniff of each others butt. How do digital marketing "experts" and geeks greet each other? Much the same way.

But instead of bending over for a quick whiff, they throw out questions designed to demonstrate their technical prowess and knowledge. They probe other geeks to gleen what they know. They make determinations as to who is dominant. They try to impress upon everyone within the sound of our own voice that they are, in fact, the smartest person in the room.

It kind of goes with the territory, and we’ve all done it, consciously or not… No one is immune, and it’s not all bad. It can be a tool to make quick judgements to help you pick and chose your associates. After all, not everyone is going to make it into your inner circle, and that’s good for your sanity.

But I am reminded of a quote from Margret Thatcher: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t" That goes for technical or marketing guru’s as well. If your constantly having to tell people how great you are at digital marketing, you are probably not all that and a bag of chips.

Let your good work speak for itself. It makes a much better statement anything you can say or pretend to be.

Way back in 1994 I went to a parking lot on the south side of the Twin Cities to a Humane Society outdoor pet adoption event. I wasn’t intending to get a Cat, just wanted to take a look around. In one of the first cages, a runt of a calico clawed her way to the top of the cage to get to me. I picked her up and she clung to me like glue. I put her back in her cage and she followed me around the cage no matter where I went, never taking her eyes off me.

I think it’s safe to say she picked me.

I brought her home and after watching her stand up on her hind legs and attempt to roar, I named her Bear.

From then on, Bear was a joyful part of my life. I mention her here because of her love of watching me and other people in the various offices over the years work on computers. She was often a part of the work day. I started my first business in a home office, and Bear was there every single day as I got things rolling.

As a kitten, she would stare at the screen and swipe away at imagined enemies moving across the screen. As she got older, she laid on top if the old CRT monitors (remember those?) whenever she wanted to. Without saying a word, Bear had declared that those monitors were officially her personal butt warmer. Any attempt to move said Cat from her personal butt warmer would be met with swift scorn.

It was a tough couple weeks for Bear when we finally ditched the last CRT monitor and got all flat screens. She spent days walking around monitors wondering how in the heck she was supposed to lay on that. Several times she did try to jump on top of them, only to go right over the other side, picker herself up and promptly pretend that never happened.

I could go on about how she was an excellent mouser, how she made fun of my singing, laughed at the inferiority of dogs who ate poop from her litter box, had several freak outs per day (I have to be in the other room- NOW!), was great at taking naps whenever I felt like one and always ate the stinkiest thing on the menu.

She was around for 16 years, so I have a lot of great memories. A few weeks ago she started getting ill, and after several painful and stressful (for her) treatments she only went down hill. Unable to eat or drink for days, she wasn’t moving, wasn’t talking and wasn’t going to get any better.

This morning her pain and suffering thankfully came to an end, but man am I going to miss that little animal. So long Bear – thanks for picking me.

Is this all really necessary? I tried to upgrade my Adobe Photoshop today. I then went to download the software, wondering why I couldn’t download it right after I paid for it. Instead of a “download now” button, I was presented with this Flash presentation on how to download the software, complete with a boat load of unexplained acronyms, bizarre rules, even more bizarre exceptions to the rules and variations on the rules – none of which helped me download what I paid for.

I just want the software I paid for. Does Adobe really want to force me to learn about their dysfunction to get it?