Jon Dale

I help businesses and organizations understand that new marketing is all about conversations...not the "conversation" where they, the marketer, shout out their message to as many people as possible, but the conversation where my client's existing customers are talking to their contacts about my client.

I explain that there are two types of conversations. The first conversation is the conversation that's happening some place else, because people are already talking about them. They may be saying good things...or bad. The question is, does my client know when the conversations are happening and, when appropriate, take part in them?

The second type of conversation is the conversation my clients host themselves. Who better to connect their customers? Often their customers naturally gather around my clients' product in the real world. I help my clients facilitate that conversation.

I help my clients create a place for their existing customers to connect with each other and prospective customers. I teach them not to try to control the conversation but to take part in it. What they earn by doing this is permission to deliver timely and relevant messages to the community.

I love inspiring change. I love to help people who have important messages make a genuine impact. I love ideas and how they spread.

How to be a better student.
How to be a better teacher.
How to spread ideas that matter.
How to communicate more effectively with the written word.
How to be a more effective change agent.

After spending six months with you, I know that the trajectory of my life will be forever changed. I don't know exactly what the future holds, but I do know that I will be able to take your lessons and share them with my clients, friends, and family. I've done well by my clients so far, but I will bring back better communication and listening skills which I'm confident will make me a more effective change agent.

In 2001, my father and a few of his friends started an organization called "House2House," designed to explore simpler ways of being the church...without a building, without paid staff, without a pastor. They offered me the job of Director and even offered to pay me, if I could raise the funds for my salary. It seemed like my type of challenge, so I took the job.

Three months later, we published the first issue of House2House Magazine and sent it to every person we could find who claimed to be interested in house church (fewer than 2,000 people). By 2003, we had over 25,000 people on our mailing list.

During my time at House2House, I secured a grant that covered my salary and two years of operating expenses, directed my staff (two part-time employees), and helped develop educational pieces that are still used by church strategists around the world. Today, an estimated 20 million* people take part in house churches in the USA.

I'm privileged to have been able to play a small part (and get a front row seat) in this huge shift in the way people are experiencing church in America.

* Barna Report: House Church Involvement Is Growing

After moving to Colorado in 2005, I took a position selling an advertising product placed in major grocery stores across the country. I did very well at this, quickly becoming the #1 sales person in the state.

About a year after starting with this company, my gut started telling me that I was in a dying business. Even though my sales were continuing to increase, I was enjoying my work less and less. I was becoming more and more convinced that what I was selling my customers wasn't the best thing they could be doing to market their business.

Meanwhile, I was spending my free time helping a couple of organizations begin to explore the emerging social media opportunities. I found myself telling new and existing customers about geographically-targeted Google Adwords as a way to increase their exposure.

After several months, I realized that I was in a cul-de-sac, so I decided to follow my passion for marketing and connecting people through social media and transition and become a social media consultant. The problem was all I had was a bunch of ideas...and no track record.

I started meeting on a regular basis with a friend of mine who worked for best-selling author John Eldredge. I kept trying to encourage them to start a podcast and blog in order to reach more people. They were pretty reticent to do anything outside of the more traditional approaches. After several months of meetings, I finally convinced them to let me launch a podcast for them for free. I offered to cover all the costs of production and hosting if they would just let me call them a "client."

Within a week of getting the green light, I had their first episode out (I recorded the intros and outros using my built-in laptop mic). With the podcast up and running (we outsourced the production to a real studio once we had a few thousand subscribers), I started talking to them about other forms of Social Media (video podcasts, blogs, and so on). By the end of the year, we had over 5000 subscribers to the podcast and I'd managed to get one of the ministry directors to blog consistently.

After six months of working for free (the first part of the dip), they told me they loved what I'd been doing and wanted me to invoice them for all the hours that I'd "volunteered." They then started paying me a generous hourly rate to be their Social Media Consultant. During this year, I've overseen the launch of a video podcast, three blogs (including one by John Eldredge), and the launch of a Ning network. I'm now on a monthly retainer with them. (Oh...and we've had well over half a million downloads of the audio podcast.)

I've since been fortunate enough to secure more clients and have a reasonably stable consulting business, getting a couple of inquiries a week entirely via referral.

About nine years ago, I was running my own successful advertising business with 12 salespeople and operations in three states. My wife, Amy, and I had a ten-month-old baby girl, a beautiful house with a swimming pool, and his and her Lexus LS400s. I played golf a couple of times a week.

And I hated what I was doing. I wanted to make a difference and do something that mattered.

Amy and I found a six-month course in community development offered by an Australian Non-Governmental Organization that was starting in 15 days. To make a long story short, two weeks later, we were on a plane to Australia with our daughter. We sold everything we owned and gave the business to one of my salespeople, who is still running it successfully.

I wish New York was closer to Colorado.

I started my blog in January of 2004.

Back when I was in my dip and trying to figure out what to do, one of your posts inspired me to briefly label myself as a "Digital Coach". I'm still ranked pretty high on the lens you created.

I'm one of only a few hundred people that Tim O'Reilly follows on Twitter (he has over 17,000 followers).

A few months ago, I told a client (who was paying me $2500 a month to manage their online advertising) that I would only renew my contract with them if they took my advice and rebuilt their website from the ground up. I was tired of helping bring relevant traffic to a site that wasn't working (a user had to fill out eight pages of forms to book a rafting trip). They're not my client any more.

I got a lot of hate mail (and gained a ton of new subscribers) after this post: Why We Love Barak Obama and Feel So Disconnected from John McCain.

My wife, Amy, has been blogging almost as long as I have, and her posts are much more entertaining than mine. She ran her first marathon last month.

In addition to my beautiful wife, I've got four incredible children. Being away from my family this long will be the hardest thing I've ever done.

I'm fortunate that Amy is completely supportive of this endeavor, and we believe it will be worth the sacrifice.

I have two friends who are CEOs of major companies (a publishing house and an online shoe store). They've both just been through really painful rounds of layoffs. I know that they've had to let some really good people go. I sent messages to both, suggesting they share your post with those who were laid off.

And...like I do for any post of yours that I find helpful, I twittered about it and talked to my sphere of influence. I also called a few close friends that I thought might be a good fit for the opportunity.