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Last Thursday I was fortunate enough to attend Roger Water’s 2010 version of The Wall, live in concert.

I was a huge Pink Floyd fan back in the day but even if you only have a mild interest in The Wall, you’ll love this show. I’m also secure enough in my manhood to admit that I love big theatrical productions. Boy was this a big theatrical production.

It helped that my friend is a large ticket broker and we scored 7th row seats dead center.

I had really intended on taking a few videos and I tried in the opening moments but it didn’t take long before all hell broke loose and I said screw it. The only video I got was probably the worst I’ve ever taken because I was so focused on the show.

I wish I had more pictures to share as well but the show was so powerful I didn’t think about pulling out a camera or phone. The only picture I took was during the intermission.

The first half half of the show the wall was being built the whole time. Meaning the last song in the first half saw the final brick in the wall placed. Here’s what it looked like at half-time from our seats:

The show ended much as the original one did 30 years ago, with the wall exploding. However, I think they probably did a better job using 2010 technology.

If you aren’t convinced yet that you need to go see the show in one of the other spots on the tour which still remain, I picked a few choice YouTube files for you to view. These videos were taken by other people who had more patience than myself.

Here’s Roger singing VERA. Very powerful stuff.

Goodbye Blue Sky

RUN LIKE HELL!!

Excuse my while I plug a product. I’m not being paid for this. I’m just doing a well-deserved favor.

A few years ago my Navy SEAL friend, Todd Ehrlich, said he was going to make liquid Motrin, that was natural. He wanted to make it for athletes.

That was a couple years ago, and I have been sampling the product as it has gotten better and ready for primetime. I have eagerly awaited when I could finally stock my fridge with a year supply, in the hope of never running out again. He finally has an amazing product and is ready for the big time, check it out at killcliff.com. I ordered five cases the other day, and I am planning on giving the drinks to employees as a benefit, because they love it too. Check out Kill Cliff, order a case and get a free t-shirt.

Also, Todd climbed Mt. Kilimajaro with me and we raised a lot of money for charity, one of the main goals Kill Cliff has is to donate money to the Naval Special Warfare Foundation. You can check that out at nswfoundation.org.

The drink also has caffine and some taurine in it. Todd would get mad at me if I called it an energy drink but it damn sure doesn’t make you tired.

It tastes something like a Sunkist but better.

Well, the Apple stores are like MA Bell anyway.

Allow me to sound really old for a moment. When I was a kid, I remember going to an AT&T store with my parents to get a new phone. Everyone got their phones from AT&T back then because they didn’t just supply the dial tone.

Or perhaps I was there to get our phone fixed. I really don’t remember because it was a long time ago and I was very young. I was really very young, I swear!

In fact, I hadn’t remembered until yesterday when I had to get my iPhone fixed. Even with an appointment it took me an hour before they called my name and it was another hour before I was able to leave and get back to work.

During the middle of the day the place was mobbed.

Incidentally, why haven’t I bought stock in APPL yet? I mean, how many times do I have to go in the store and see 150 people spending $1000 on average and still not buy their stock?

Anyway, the experience rushed back the memory of MA Bell. Apple needs to open more stores and hire more “geniuses” or they risk being looked at by their customers like AT&T did back in the day.

I have a feeling that they’ll break 4th quarter revenue records this year and become the biggest company in the world. If they do, how are they going to support all of those devices?

New to outsourcing? Get 2 Months Free from now until November 5th, 2010*

You’re busy. You have important things on the to do list. You wish you can hire a team to do the repetitive or time-consuming tasks that brings down your productivity and doesn’t require the special skills unique to you. So you’re looking to hire people to help you do the little things while you work on the bigger picture, or work on your core business. But how do you start? Who can you trust to do as good a job as you would yourself? How do you get the most bang for the buck?

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There are conditions to this offer, as you may imagine, but the reason we’re offering this is because we understand the concerns of businesses who are trying out outsourcing for the first time. If you give us a call, you will find that we really make the process of outsourcing as easy as pie. We’re friendly, and we walk you through the process and be there for you as your partner.

Open.ph exists to save you money and save you time by letting you hire the staff you need at a huge discount to hiring locally. This special makes it even easier to let you do that. We make the process of outsourcing simple and affordable.

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I’d like to announce a major hire for our fast growing company. We’ve managed to recruit Marie Ramos to lead our Open.ph team in the Philippines.

She’s a Filipino-American from Portland, Oregon who’s uniquely qualified to both lead our staff and engage our customers.

Her degree in neuroscience and behavioral science from Emory University here in Atlanta first led her into the biotech industry, where she helped develop brain implants for paralyzed patients.

Years later, the business world called her, so she trained at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, became an entrepreneur in technical publications and web applications, and eventually crossed paths with my team.

The list of reasons why she’s perfect for the job goes on and on and includes little things like experience in accent training and big things like access to top political and media connections in The Philippines.

Her dynamic personality and leadership skills will make a big impact.

I’m thrilled to have her aboard as she’ll cross that cultural divide which is essential in running a multi-national company. I’m sure the staff in Manila will like and respect her as well as our valued customers.

Marie will be working out of Atlanta for the rest of the year and moving to the Philippines in January.

If there’s one business I have a lot of experience in it’s outsourcing. I myself have been using offshore labor to work on my ever expanding idea list for more than twelve years now.

My journey has taken me to many different countries and even gotten me in the business of selling outsourcing as a service.

Many of you will remember iWeb, now Offshoringcom, which I cofounded in 2002. I sold my shares of that company back in 2008.

After the sale I started aeiou, the first mini-site company, only to shut it down a year later due to a flawed business model.

Well, I’m back in the business now, this time with Open.ph. I’ve been able to draw from those past experiences to build a superior product.

Offshore labor is great not only for reducing costs but also for getting more work done. Handled properly, it should both lower your overhead and increase your output.

I’d love to have a chance to tell you all about my new offering. If you have any interest at all, just complete the solution wizard on the new Open.ph and I’ll personally call you and share everything I know.

I wasn’t at all surprised to see today’s Groupon promoting Shutterfly. I myself tried to get them to market Vino.com a while back but my site wasn’t big and famous enough for them. It had been a long shot all along but I had to try.

After all, Groupon is nothing more than a super affiliate in my book. It seemed inevitable that they would launch a nationwide CPA campaign for a web based product or service.

While the company has gotten its start promoting local businesses like restaurants, tanning salons and massage parlors, as a business person I’ve wanted desperately to find a way to get them to promote a product for me on a nationwide scale.

Unfortunately, It’ll be some time before I have something that’ll get them excited in the way that Shutterfly appears to have done. Groupon has been smart in only listing restaurants with great yelp ratings and reviews and its equally wise to carefully select the web based brands promoted on their network.

So, kudos to Groupon for picking Shutterfly. It was a great campaign to start with because it wouldn’t have helped your brand much to go with a typical CPA program like nutraceuticals or bizopps.

In an effort to subsidize part of my costs for my Philippine outsourcing operations, I’m going to accept three and only three clients. This is by no means my core business and I don’t intend on making it so. I’m looking for just a few small to mid-size customers who need writers, SEO people or graphics designers who want to share in my expenses.

The kind of customers I’m looking for need five to ten people to help them with the volume of work they need done.

Anyone who joins me will be able to visit my operations there and spend time with their team, if they chose to. Their team would report directly to them and they work during U.S. hours so using Skype, it’s like they are sitting in your own office.

Again, I’m only looking for three clients. No less and no more.

Please contact me if you are interested.

Someone asked me recently what my favorite website was. It’s an interesting question really because I rarely have time to use the web as entertainment.

To me the question implies that industry related sites don’t count. I’m also discounting the must visit sites like Google, Facebook and your favorite news site.

So my question to you is, what sites do you visit regularly that are off the beaten path?

Personally, I love the site lifehacker.com. I regularly use the tips and tricks that I learn from that site.

My two favorite blogs are Seth Godin’s and Fred Wilson’s.

Honestly, I could use some recommendations. After 15 years of starring into the net, I’ve really not done much actual surfing, crazy as that sounds.

This is my third post in my Lessons Learned series and my first about sales and marketing. I may come back to management in the coming days or weeks as I continue to work through these in my own head. As previously stated, this exercise is for my benefit as much as yours. I’m putting them in writing to remind myself of what is important.

Those that know me well know that I’m always spouting these same quotes that I’m basing this series on. I believe in fundamentals and that business skills are learned and need to be practiced like an instrument or a sport.

Today’s lesson learned isn’t one I need to remind myself of as often. It’s one I live by more than most others and one that I say often around the office.

No matter what product you are selling, there are only three ways to increase revenue. You can increase your lead count, improve your closing ratio or raise your average ticket price.

All activities should be designed to affect one or all of those three things.

It doesn’t matter if you are selling domains, timeshares, diamonds, watches, televisions, t-shirts, website memberships, software, or anything else. It’s always the same three metrics that determine your revenue.

Sure, there are other variables inside of those metrics. For example, there may be four or five metrics that you look at when determining your lead count. However, the top of the pyramid contains only those three. Always.

Yesterday, we finished our July goals and incentivized our management from top to bottom in our luxury watch division based on these three metrics.

Our marketing team has a specific July target goal for a lead count that we know if we get, we’ll hit our revenue target.

Our sales team which takes the leads and gets the packages to our offices has a specific conversion ratio as a target that we know if they hit, we’ll hit our revenue target.

Our closing team which sells the watches, has a specific average ticket price that we know, if we hit, we’ll hit our revenue target.

Their goals are structured in a way that we only need one of them to win for us to get to the level we want to be at by the end of July. If two or three of them hit their targets, we are off to the races.