The keys to my success:
In business just like life you need to surround yourself wit good and challenging people. In my professional life I spent a good chunk of time searching for the right mentor to help guide me through the murky waters of professional work, office politics, and my own strengths and weaknesses.
I’m gonna brag here a bit because I’m lucky enough to have two mentors looking out for me. Sure there have been a few candidates along the way, and more than once I thought I’d found that guiding voice; only to be disappointed. I found my first mentor at the beginning of 2010, an established Internet marketer at that point, who’s skill set is built around public speaking and personal branding (both areas where I continue to grow as I give them more focus). My second mentor I met earlier this year, and found a kindred spirit in how I believe the Internet will change over the next few years.
My first mentor is a woman named Krista Neher, she is the CEO/Founder of Boot Camp Digital. Krista did a great job challenging my ideas on what I was already good at, will showing me other ways, tools and strategies to get the desired results. Krista has been great at giving advice and has truly become a great friend. While I don’t work with Krista day to day anymore, I still give her a call when I’m stuck on a problem and live in awe of the schedule she keeps and amount of content she is able to produce on a regular basis.
Mentor number two is a relative new comer to my personal community, but has fast become a a valuable connection and friend. Tom Jones (no not the Vegas icon), is a Cincinnati marketing staple, we met coincidently enough at the release party for Krista’s second book (Visual Social Media Marketing), and after talking to him for just a few minutes I knew he was someone I could really teach me a lot. Tom is pretty amazing, not only is he brilliant at just about everything (the guy worked for NASA for pete’s sake), but he is also heavily involved with Miami University and the Cincinnati Roller Girls as the Public Address Announcer.
Recently when I got laid off, the first two people I reached out to for a game plan were Krista and Tom. Both gave me some great advice on how to reposition myself as a brand and promote myself as a consultant. I have been working in the web since 1999, but I have never really had the courage to go out on my own and sell myself and my expertise to clients. Part of the reason for that hesitation, is because I’ve never really had a strong professional support community.
I consider myself very lucky to have people like Tom and Krista in my corner. Sure I have advocates and fans around the web and in the marketing space who I can go to with questions, to learn from and many have become friends, but by surrounding myself with people like Tom and Krista I get to learn something new every time we talk and they never stop challenging me to be the best version of me.
So to Krista and Tom all I can say is thank you for taking the time to invest in me. I hope you get as much from these relationships as I do. Because without you I would be truly lost.
If you don’t already follow Krista and Tom, here are the links where you can find them around the web… let the know I sent you.
Krista Neher:
About Brian Tudor
Brian Tudor is the CEO and Founder of Deadshot Digital, he has been marketing websites since the Internet was a fad. During his time in the digital world, he has worked on everything from managing Geocities communities to running digital marketing for national brands. Brian's passion for the web and how it can help brands, businesses, and individuals is matched by few in the space.