What did I just do?!?!

Way back in 2022 at the Country Music Alberta awards in Red Deer, where I met the great Ron Sakamoto, a young band called NewLaw that I had been working with for years was nominated for the Fan’s Choice Award. I met them in the lobby prior to the ceremony and we talked about their nomination.

I asked if they had speeches ready and they didn’t! When I asked them why, they told me to look at the other nominees. I reminded them that they are ALL in the same boat, it’s always anybody’s game and they should at least prepare to “cause a scene” if they win. They jokingly asked me if that meant they should swear on stage, despite not believing that they would win. I told them that, as a Christian music group, they probably shouldn’t do that, but to try to find something.

Well… watch!

Needless to say, this caused an uproar and LOTS of discussion in the enormous crowd after, making them “the talk of the night” AND THAT clip was the sound byte that was used on radio the next day when broadcasters were recapping the event.

That, and here’s a fun fact: I once helped someone win a Juno by producing percussion on a blues track, but they never mentioned me when they WON, but I once said in a lyric of one of my songs that I dreamed of being mentioned at a music awards – so check that off the bucket list! (Thanks, boys)

I heard from their mom, asking me, “WHAT DID YOU DO?” but I stood my ground and chuckled. “Marketing!” Is what I said.

And those boys have continued on their musical journey since.

Check them out at newlawbrothers.com.

P.S. Here’s me holding the Juno I helped win…

And here’s the track…

My dad is a master salesman. For years I have encouraged him to write a book to anecdotally teach others, which he has now started – he has the first 3 chapters complete. I encouraged him to call it The Tale of the Sale years ago, which he loved, so we are going with that. I get to have the distinction of being his proofreader, editor, and cover designer.

For the cover, my first thought was to see what the highest customer-rated sales-related books on Amazon look like to see if we can gather some data from that as to how the cover itself might be garnering clicks + purchases. I used AI to analyze a screenshot showing the top ones and asked it to identify any specific aspects or elements that might be specific contributing factors. The results were amazing!

After giving it a little more information, we settled on 3 potential concepts and now, having seen them, it’s hard to choose. Check it out!

Personally, I am leaning towards the one of the little boy carrying a briefcase for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact that even as a young boy, Doug was already into sales to the point that his mom used to call him, “Dougie, my little salesman.”

That, and I can’t help but feel that the cover itself is a totally unique concept and really lends itself to not only the fact that this young boy found his way in the world through sales.

I’m going to design it myself, but this is a great start!

If you’re curious, this is the gamut of the top customer-rated sales-related books:

I have now completed this custom social media post approval dashboard for my client, who – in addition to needing their approval for each post – needs their company’s approval. Super proud of this one!

We sure have come a long way from some basic “computer help!” First it was the monthly marketing program (1 post every weekday to Facebook and Instagram) to now:

• 1 post every weekday to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Google Business, including the campaign and content development itself
• New website, built, hosted, and managed by yours truly (building and improving every weekday)
• Restored Google Business Profile being managed and tweaked every weekday
• Email management
• Booking management

Get a closer look to see what a cohesive ecosystem looks like – gratefulmedium.ca.

It is just incredible to see how many people and teams are participating in this year’s annual Payton and Dillon Budd Memorial Ride + Walk. They have now exceeded their target fundraising amount and extended the goal. Check it out here.

Learn A.I. one Tuesday at a time with Tech Tuesday with Matthew J during Mornings with B Mack & Karly on 99.9 Sun FM. Today’s segments are now available for replay here.

At every AI event, I put out a challenge, called The Tightrope Banana Challenge and invariably people will try, but to this day, no one has quite gotten it right. They get close – as do I, but the physics of a banana on a tightrope seems to just be the one thing that AI can’t quite do. This was a message and video sent to my by an attendee of my most recent event. See what I mean?

Aside from “blogging” (more on why that’s in air quotes another time) there are sometimes out-of-the-box ways that you can provide topic-adjacent, keyword-rich, SEO-friendly resources to your website to (a) bolster your offering, and (b) give people something more than strictly the paid product or service you provide. One of my clients is a medium, but she is also masterful with affirmations, so today I added a “Resources” section to her website, which will allow us to enhance the presence of the term affirmations on her website while providing something to her visitors, such as the following… our first desktop wallpaper!

If you are marketing using an AI avatar, one thing I have found is that if you make subtle changes over time you don’t end up having the same base image flooding your social media. It gives it a little more realism.

Here are the last few transitions I did for one of my clients: