David Young | Branding Blog - Marketing Advice and Advertising Strategy for Local Business Owners

Terry Pettit: Coach, Mentor, Author, Rockstar

Every field of endeavor has its Rockstars. In the world of Collegiate Volleyball coaching, Terry Pettit is a Rockstar. As the coach of the University of Nebraska Volleyball team Terry Pettit's coaching record was an astounding 694 and 148 (82% winning record).

When Terry travels back to Nebraska from his current home of Fort Collins, Colorado, he is recognized in stores and on the streets where people want to re-live his teams' amazing feats.

His 2008 book, Talent and the Secret Life of Teams is a masterfully crafted collection of some of the best leadership lessons you'll find anywhere. Although written about volleyball, you'd have to be pretty dense not to see the applications for business, marketing, hiring and mentoring.

It was exciting news to find out that Terry would be attending my class at Wizard Academy this week. He was an engaged and inquisitive student, asking challenging questions and always wanting to know more detail and underlying concepts in our blog/web workshop.

Both Terry and I were scheduled to fly home to the Denver airport Thursday morning, but the weather intervened, requiring us to stay in Austin for an extra day.

Today, the tables were turned.  I was treated to a personal seminar from one of the best leadership presenters I've ever come across. Pettit's stories of trust, collaborative leadership and talent are woven together with movie clips, insightful exercises and the wisdom that can only come from a lifetime of walking the walk.

A private seminar that coaches and corporations have paid tens of thousands of dollars to hear, went a long way towards making up for an extra day away from my family…not all the way…but certainly unforgettable and the best weather delay you could possibly ask for.

If you want to run into rockstars like Terry Pettit, you should come to Wizard Academy. I think Terry will be back one day soon.

Signup Now for a free Bootstrap Business Book

I wish I could have been in Austin for the Bootstrap Business Bootcamp debut at Wizard Academy. Rich Christiansen and Ron Porter had a super group of students a couple weeks ago.

I can't say enough good things about this book and the expertise behind it. I had a very early manuscript and I knew that it was just the kind of information that a person needs in the very early stages of starting a business.

Since then, I've been able to spend a fair amount of time with these guys. Rich has helped me put some proper focus into my own business and my life. These guys are the real deal. They live what they write about and they can teach you how to do the same...especially now that their Bootstrap program is up and running.

I've got an extra signed copy of Bootstrap Business: A Step-by-Step Business Survival Guide. (You can't have my copy...because it's dog-eared and full of notes and hi-liting)

Here's how to win it:  Just enter your name and email address in my subscription form at the top of the right hand column. I just put this form on the site and I'd appreciate some help in testing it. I'll draw one winner from today's subscribers only.

I've got some pretty cool offerings coming up in the next few months, so subscribing will definitely be worth your while, even if you don't win the book. More on that later...

Just a few seats left in Blog/Web Workshop

Roy Williams gave a nice plug to my blog/web workshop at the end of today's Rabbit Hole in today's Monday Morning Memo.

We'll be teaching the class using an innovative and relatively easy WordPress system. It's not the free blog you can get on WordPress.com, but it's an easier path than doing the whole self-hosting thing where you've got to buy hosting, do the FTP thing, apply themes, etc.

Who is the class for? If you've been using your computer for quite a while, but have never ventured out past the safe harbor of browsing and reading email, we can get you rolling. We've taken folks who didn't even know that there was such a thing as a right-click on their mouse and turned them into bloggers.

If you've experimented with pointy-clicky editing and content management systems quite a bit, you may find the course to be a bit more elementary than you would like. You are still VERY welcome to attend, but we may ask you to help your classmates along!

So, you'll walk away with a website and integrated blog. You'll have a much better idea of how the internet works and why blogs are a big part of the glue that binds it all together. You'll understand the basics of how a design is chopped up and applied to a site. You'll also get a bonus session where you'll develop the outline of an entire year's worth of blogging, or the outline to your next book.

You'll get all of that...if there's still a seat left.

Blogging for Beginners...October 27 & 28 in Austin

Yes, the class is for beginners. People with no confidence in their ability to build anything on-line are welcomed with open arms. I promise you will succeed.

Listen to these people, who didn't think they could do it...

If your business doesn't have a web site today, it's like not having a phone just 10 years ago.

Get with the program. Come to Austin.

PS...we only take 12 students.

Jon Spoelstra, author of "Marketing Outrageously" turns to Fiction

Links: Wizard Academy, Jon Spoelstra on Amazon