Advice from a News Director

Wow! Another great interview! I have lucked out as of recent finding talented people willing to share and inspire. I had the privilege of visiting with Spencer Hall, News Director at KSL.com and founder of Salt City Hoops, via email about his challenges, memories, and advice. I have known Spencer for almost 10 years and every time we do lunch I learn something new. I have been envious of his past job covering the Utah Jazz for ESPN, living the dream of any sports enthusiast. Everyone needs to read this. There are a few answers that Spencer shares that I have never thought about and really hit home. Hint: Change is helpful. Enjoy!

Q: What is the most challenging aspect about your job as the news director at KSL.com?

A: The most challenging part of this aspect of my job is finding ways to give good coverage to all the great sporting events, teams, and individuals in Utah — even though I don't have a huge budget. It's tough to give every team or athlete the coverage that they probably deserve. 

Relatedly, it's difficult to decide which events should be covered more than others. It's easy with things like BYU and UofU football, but other events like Jazz games and RSL games are more hit or miss. And don't even ask me about coverage of the Tooele marching band. (If the parents of the marching band kids had their way, we'd run nothing but marching band stories all day every day.)

Q: What is the greatest sports memory you can recall whether it’s you playing or watching?

The Sundiata Gaines Game was one of the most exciting events I've ever covered. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were in Salt Lake playing the Jazz and had the game almost completely wrapped up before losing to the Jazz on a last-second shot by the unknown Sundiata Gaines, who had just signed a 10-day contract. The arena went nuts.

Covering the Jazz the night of Jerry Sloan's abrupt retirement was also amazing. Sloan was one of the main reasons I ever became interested in professional basketball and covering him every game night was a dream come true. It was a surreal couple days as we all tried to make sense of the situation and tried to get a complete understanding of all the pieces in very weird and sad puzzle. It's a shame a legend like that went out the way he did, regardless of the reasons. 

Q: Where did the idea of Salt City Hoops come from? Why? How?

When ESPN first launched their TrueHoop contributor network, I already had a relationship with ESPN editor Henry Abbott through work I did for an early basketball blog called Free Darko. Because of my background as a designer and programmer and the Free Darko work, Henry and Kevin Arnovitz asked me to run the Utah Jazz site in the TrueHoop Network. As a side note, it's been cool to see Henry and Kevin move up the ranks at ESPN and see that they're now the head honchos running everything for ESPN.com/NBA.

As for the name, I was clearly influenced by all the "Salt City ______" brands in Salt Lake. A roller derby team called the Salt City Derby Girls had a team member who left great comments on the early incarnations of Deadspin, so that probably stuck in my brain a bit. I narrowly missed (by one letter) accidentally creating a name that also shared initials with my own name (SRH/Spencer Ryan Hall). SCH will have to do. It was tricky to find a name that people could somehow identify with pro basketball in Utah without infringing on copyright or brands owned by the Jazz or the NBA. Five years later, I'm happy with the final result. 

Q: What are your top 3 keys to being successful?

"Stop asking. Start creating. Be useful." That's a motto I stole from a fellow three-named basketball writer named Peter Robert Casey early in my writing career. It's been the best advice I've every received. Every boss, every organization, every client is looking for someone to help them get things done. If you can become known as the kind of person who solves that problem for people, you'll never look for work again. It will always look for you. 

We live in a world with unlimited access to information. If you don't know how to do something, you can jump online or go to a library or make a connection with someone who can teach you what you need to know. After graduating from college I used to find job descriptions online for positions that I thought would be cool — even though they were completely out of my range. I'd go through all the requirements and write down the ones I didn't have or didn't know how to do. Then I'd choose a few and make those my goals for the next week or month or year. This helped me to diversity my skills and allowed me to be flexible with my career. 

Lastly, we're usually an amalgamation of the people we spend time around. I've been lucky to have great friends and family members who have helped me make better decisions, keep my head up when times are tough, and point me in a new direction when I've felt stuck. Choosing the voices we follow makes a huge difference in our mental health and ability to navigate a difficult world. 

Q: What advice would you give to someone who has a blog or an idea trying to take it to the next level?

I'd repeat the "Stop asking / Start creating / Be useful" line. Also, there are great examples all around us of people who have done great things. Most success involves standing on the shoulders of giants. We absolutely live in a copycat world, so starting off with imitation is a great way to start to learn the details of any topic. Soon you'll start to find your differentiating niche; your customizations will become your unique brand. 

Also, anybody who can be any two of intelligent, clever, funny, or beautiful (or represent beautiful), can be wildly successful online — if they can be consistent. Unfortunately, I've found that it's very, very rare for anyone to be able to be even one of those things and also be consistent. Anybody can be hot once, but can they do it for a year? For 10 years? 

This is one of those thoughts that hit home. Am I being consistent enough? Do I give up too early with a new idea? I want to be more determined to take an idea to the end even if it fails.

Q: What were the failures you had prior to your success?

Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to "be" in life. I didn't have the luxury that some have of knowing exactly what kind of a career to follow. While I recognize that it's definitely a first world problem to carry the burden of choice and the paralysis of indecision, it makes it difficult to know what to do. As someone who likes everything and finds the entire world interesting, it's been tough for me to stay in one place and follow a traditional career path. 

Luckily, I've had a lot of support from friends and family that allowed me to follow my interests while I narrowed in on how I could make my mark. I've started businesses that didn't work, tried jobs I didn't like, lost money on all kinds of things, and made a lot of bad decisions. Through it all, I'm lucky to have had the good sense to surround myself with people who help me keep my head up and give me encouragement. It's made all the difference. 

Q: What has been the biggest helping in marketing your business? (twitter, blogging?etc.)

Twitter has been the best thing to happen to creative types and news people since the internet reached the masses. It's allowed me to connect with all kinds of amazing people over the years. Before all that, however, I would email writers or people I admired and was always amazed at how many would write back. Those correspondences have been amazingly helpful in connecting me with people who have opened all kinds of doors for me. 

Like I mentioned earlier, most successful people have revealed their secrets at some point. You can read their book or their column or listed to their TED talk. Most people, however, aren't willing to put in the repetitive hard work that it takes to replicate their methods. It's the reason why we buy a dieting book instead of going for a run, or why we listen to Oprah instead of visiting a neighbor. We know how we want to feel/be, but we try to find ways to avoid the work. I battle my nature on this every single day. 

This was a tough pill to swallow for me. It's great advice. Amazing advice. I tend to live my life through TED. I dream and imagine being on TED but I never do what it takes to on the stage.

Thanks Spencer for sharing some thoughts that most of us would never admit. Thanks for pointing out the elephant in the room. I think we all could take the next step in our careers or lives to make a different or be the person you want to be.

Six Sisters STUFF! It's amazing!

Six Sisters STUFF!

New Book Coming Soon!

I had another great interview via email back and forth. This time I had the opportunity to learn from one of the talented sisters from Six Sisters STUFF. Camille was kind enough to take some time out of her busy day as a mom and running a successful business to enlighten me and hopefully you as the reader.

There really is some great tips and helpful info from this interview for any blogger or anyone in a start-up!  
Hint: Social Media Rocks!

They have recently come out with a great new book that everyone should check out! Its release date is later this month. Go to their site for more info.

Q: How did you get your start?

A: We started our blog in 2011 as a way to stay in touch with each other. It was our place to share recipes we made for our families or share ideas. Suddenly, we saw that we were getting more and more hits each day. People from all over the world were randomly finding our blog (we had a little tracker on the side that would show us where our traffic was coming from). We knew that people made money blogging, but we weren't sure how, so we started doing research. We approached our dad, who has a background in computer business, and we came up with a plan to help us monetize our blog. Blogging definitely is not a "get rich quick" plan, but with a lot of hard work, you can make money from it. For the first 6 months, we didn't make one penny. Then, we finally made $100 in month seven. Since then, our money has grown exponentially. Our company, Six Sisters' Stuff LLC, now employs over 20 people, including our parents.

We host a blog conference in Salt Lake each year and we are constantly telling the attendees that if they are only blogging to make money, they will never be successful. You need the passion and love to really have success in this crazy business. Focus on growing your blog and then the money will come.

 

Q: What were the failures you had prior to your success?

A: We definitely had a lot of trial and error. One of the largest streams of income for bloggers are ads in the sidebars. We learned the hard way that if it's too good to be true, it most likely is- we were burned more than once by large ad network companies. It was a nightmare. To solve that problem, we are getting ready to launch our own ad network this year. :)

Q: What is the best thing about working with family?

A: I absolutely love working with my family, but it's not something I would recommend for everyone. You have to make sure that you have amazing communication - if you don't communicate, it will never work! Communication was something we really had to work on, but we are finally in a place where we have it figured out.

Q: What advice would you give to someone who has a blog or an idea trying to take it to the next level?

A: When it comes to blogging, just do it. Sometimes getting started really is a leap of faith, but if you are willing to do the work, things will work out. If you already have a blog and want to take it to the next level, I would suggest focusing on these things:

1. Post consistently. One of the most important things is to keep the content coming! If a reader finds your blog and loves reading your posts, then checks back a couple days later and you don't have anything new, chances are you have lost that reader for life. Keep the new content coming. I would suggest posting at least 2-3 times a week (more if possible!).

2. Monetize your blog as soon as possible. One of the easiest ways is to sign up for ads is through Google AdSense. Once you sign up, they do all the work for you. You just need to keep the traffic coming!

3. Be actively involved on social media. Pick a couple of social media networks that you feel your readers would use and start promoting your blog on them. People will never be able to find your blog if you don't put yourself out there.

Q: Do you ever do consulting work helping those trying to the next step?

A: Yes- you can contact me at any time. Just email me and we can talk. I have helped a handful of businesses with their social media and blog strategies and every single one has seen an increase in traffic and business. Blogging and social media are the next big thing!

Q: Where do you get your ideas or blog posts or book ideas?

A: Ha ha! They come at the funniest times. Lots of times, the best ideas come at night or while I am doing my hair or getting ready for the day. I've even dreamed about different ideas I could do! The thing about my brain is that it never turns off- I am constantly brain storming and thinking of new things, even though sometimes I wish it would just turn off for a day or two!

Q: What has been the biggest helping in marketing your business?

A: Most definitely social media! There is so much power in social media - it's the most powerful tool for bloggers. If you aren't utilizing social media, don't plan on reaching your full potential. I actually teach a social media class that teaches you about the potential you can have when you use social media strategically.

 If anyone has a company they would like featured or if there are people they would like me to contact and interview please sent your ideas to clintcarver@hotmail.

 

One of the Best! BKA Content

Drum roll please.... I am proud to introduce my latest and one of my favorite interviews with a great company, an amazing person and my friend Greg. He has an amazing story and I am so glad he decided to share it with me. I couldn't wait to post this gem to share it with you. I hope all of you read this in its entirety. I learned some very important lessons from this interview and if any company out there has a need for talented content for your website I am sure Greg and his company will take great care of you. Content is King!

How did BKA Content come about?

In 2009, co-founder Matt Secrist graduated from Utah State University with dual degrees in Economics and Finance.   The economy, however, was in recession and Matt had no real job prospects! Greg Secrist, the other co-founder and older brother, had been dabbling in ways to make residual income online. Feeling a bit sorry for his younger sibling, he decided to help.  For several months, Greg had discovered the power of internet marketing, having created a few blog sites that were bringing in steady, albeit small, residual income. Greg helped Matt set up his own blog sites in the hope of similarly generating some income. Considerable time was spent searching for providers of quality content to help update the blogs and improve their search rankings. Much of what they found was written by off-shore content providers and was often garbage, unintelligible and stuffed with keywords.

Through their research, they quickly realized that there was a market in providing quality, American-written content to companies with websites. In early 2010, they decided to create a simple Word Press site that advertised original content written by American writers – Buykeywordarticles.com was born!  The original idea was that the site might generate some revenue for Matt while he continued to look for a Finance job (that he will admit that he didn’t actually want to get).  A simple order form was placed on the site where clients could order 1, 5 or 10 articles, and they sat back to see what would happen.

Several years later, Buykeywordarticles.com has now become BKA Content, and is one of the industry leaders when it comes to internet content creation.

 Q: What would you say are the top 3 keys to your success?  

A: This is a great question.  In our industry especially, technology and automation are the name of the game.  Most of our competitors simply offer an automated platform in which a client and writer can connect in order to complete a content writing project.  We provide something different to our clients, which I would consider to be our first key to success, which is to provide good old fashioned business to client relationships.  This means that we have real account managers who can talk with clients, discuss their needs and ultimately help them process their orders so that the client has one point of contact throughout their whole experience with us.  This approach, while considered old fashioned by today’s internet standards, has created customer loyalty and has made us a trusted, accessible, and well recognized partner for their content needs.

I would consider the 2^nd key to our success to be the people that we have brought on board in our company.  As a new company, we have sought out people who we can not only trust, but who have bought into our vision of what BKA Content can become with their help.  Some of these individuals have come from large corporations and have taken pay cuts to help us bring this dream into fruition and to progress the company to new heights. We love these people as they are talented, loyal, and have the company’s best interests in mind.

The 3^rd key to our success would have to be the company culture we are working to cultivate here at BKA Content.  Even though our writers are technically independent contractors, the management goes out of their way to listen to their feedback, send them little gifts when they go above and beyond on a project, have company writing contests, summer company BBQ’s, or even send them flowers during a time of loss.  By taking care of people, we have fostered a healthy “team” mentality.  This mentality helps our people to care more about their work, which in turn gives our company better quality and more dependable workers.

Q: How do you solve business disagreements and decide which direction to go? 

A: I have to admit that most of the disagreements happen between my brother Matt and I, and I apologize to all of the other managers for having to witness some of these spats, but while we may disagree, we always do our best to respect each other’s view, get other people’s feedback and shelve the discussion if things are beginning to get a bit tense, or if we know we won’t come to a solution at that specific moment in time.

One thing that really helps us to decide on a direction to go as a company is through doing research.  This research helps us to decide a direction based on the possible impact the decision may have on the business, who it may effect, etc.  The decisions that have to be made regarding the unknown are always the hardest for me, as there typically is no research to support a decision, and in those cases we really try to just check out gut feeling and the gut feelings of others on our team to make the final decision.

Q: What were the failures you had prior to your success? 

A: Wow this is a painful question.  Right after I married my sweet wife, I had an extended family relative who was involved in real estate/financial investments who pressured a few of my family members to join in on what he was doing.  When I was first approached by it, I had a bad feeling about it and decided to opt out.  My parents on the other hand, who are about the most frugal people I know, decided to join in.  Within the first few months of joining the program, they were making very good returns and my Dad was even planning on retiring from his job of 20+ years.

By seeing my parents do so well with this investment opportunity, my logic took over in the place of my feelings.  I started convincing myself that if my frugal parents, who have always been responsible with money, felt that this was a good idea and were seeing results then I should be just fine participating. 

Well I stupidly borrowed $50 thousand dollars, which was a huge investment for a newly married 22 year old (most investors in this program put in several hundreds of thousands of dollars) in the form of a personal bank loan to put into this investment.  Did I make any money?  Not a dime.  The week after I put my money in, my relative’s assets were seized by the SEC due to fraud, and my parents, myself and others were staring financial ruin in the face as all the money invested was ultimately lost and never recovered.

Now I want to make it clear that I don’t blame my parents for my joining in.  I had my gut feelings, and I should have listened to them because sometimes we shouldn’t participate in things, even if they look good on paper.  As we found out after the fact, my relative leveraged his family and religious relationships in order to operate an elaborate Ponzi scheme.  

Through MANY years of struggling, lawsuits and hopelessness, I’m happy to say that 7 years later, my parents and I are recovering well from this mishap due to undeserved blessings.  While this experience was absolutely horrible, it taught me many things that have helped me with owning a business.  Here are a few of the ways I have implemented a few of the things I’ve learned from this life lesson:

1.       At this current point in time, BKA Content doesn’t owe any lender a cent.  We are completely self-funded and run off of our own capital.  Has this slowed our growth?  Yes.  Do we pay ourselves peanuts to put more money into the business?  Yes, but it has given us greater stability and has not burdened us with the threat of debt.

2.       I spend a lot more time researching things now before we make a decision as a company, especially when it comes to money. 

3.       I’ve also seen the power of not having all of your eggs in one basket.  While BKA Content does take the majority of my time and efforts, I am always pursuing other avenues in which I can make additional income.  I do this to potentially help soften the blow if an income stream all of a sudden disappears.

Q: What is the best thing about being your own boss? What’s the most challenging part? 

A: One of the things I enjoy most about being my own boss is to be in control of the success of the company.  I like having no-one else to blame but myself if the business succeeds or fails – which is a lot of responsibility. 

The responsibility of employing people and ensuring that the business is doing well enough to keep them paid is probably the most challenging part because I really do care about these people.  I know that I am directly responsible for having their basic financial needs met, which definitely weighs on me.

Q: If you could start all over again what would you do differently?  

A: If I could start over, I would have brought on more qualified help sooner.  I was pretty freaked out to stretch our own assets to be able to hire people based on my horrible financial experience, but in hindsight, I think we could have definitely benefited from having the expertise that we have on board now earlier to set us up for more increased growth.

Q: What book has inspired you the most? 

A: “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits Passions, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zappos.com.   This book basically shows that by taking care of your people (employees), they in turn take care of your and your customers.

Q: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received or have given?  

A: To slightly exceed your customers’ expectations.  The reason why you should “slightly” exceed the expectation is that if you go too overboard, the client will expect that type of response every time, which is unrealistic.  But if you slightly exceed their expectation, they are a little happier than normal and will more than likely attribute any correspondence with you to happiness.

Q:Superman or Batman?  

A: Batman!  He actually had to earn his “super-hero” status through honing his skills, and hard work!