{"id":6521,"date":"2016-09-01T09:35:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T13:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/?p=6521"},"modified":"2016-09-01T09:35:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-01T13:35:04","slug":"next-big-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/next-big-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Next Big Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/Startup-Sales-Messaging.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6522\" src=\"http:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/Startup-Sales-Messaging.png\" alt=\"Startup-Sales-Messaging\" width=\"620\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/Startup-Sales-Messaging.png 620w, https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/Startup-Sales-Messaging-300x160.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Adapted from a session given at the 2016 <a href=\"http:\/\/annual.asaecenter.org\/index.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">ASAE Annual Meeting &amp; Expo<\/a> by:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Robert Stephens, founder, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeekSquad\" target=\"_blank\">The Geek Squad<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Stephens started his Game Changer session by sharing the history of the tech support giant he created, The Geek Squad. &#8220;I fell into a boring business that I fell in love with,&#8221; he said. His passion for the company shined through as he talked about its early days when all he had was a bicycle and a phone to take calls from clients. Stephens explained how in the early days, he approached every decision as a marketing activity, from the design of the company&#8217;s logo to the car he bought to go on house calls to the uniform he had his employees wear. All details matter, he said. Pay attention to the unexpected details that most people miss, and you&#8217;ll be memorable in the eyes of your audience \u2013 whether that&#8217;s a customer or a member.<\/p>\n<p>After sharing the lessons he learned building a successful company, Stephens shifted direction and, like the name of his session suggested, talked about what he sees as the &#8220;next big thing&#8221; in technology: business messaging. He shared his outlook of how messaging can be used for everything, from communicating much like we already do today to ordering food, buying movie tickets and scheduling your next flight. In the future, Stephens sees most of those interactions taking place with a bot (a form of artificial intelligence) that will help customers by giving them exactly what they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, talks about what he sees as the &#8220;next big thing&#8221; in technology: business messaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":6522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,3],"tags":[219,1207,1208,1209,1210],"class_list":["post-6521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-front-lines","category-revenue","tag-asae-annual","tag-building-a-business","tag-game-changer","tag-geek-squad","tag-robert-stephens"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Next Big Thing - Association Adviser<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, talks about what he sees as the &quot;next big thing&quot; in technology: business messaging.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/next-big-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Next Big Thing - Association Adviser\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, talks about what he sees as the &quot;next big thing&quot; in technology: business messaging.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/next-big-thing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Association Adviser\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-01T13:35:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/Startup-Sales-Messaging.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"330\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sarah Sain, CAE\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarah Sain, CAE\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/next-big-thing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/next-big-thing\/\",\"name\":\"The Next Big Thing - Association Adviser\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-01T13:35:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-01T13:35:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/#\/schema\/person\/3c7ebb1cda2f0dc511a2a312ecb4d4ba\"},\"description\":\"Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad, talks about what he sees as the \\\"next big thing\\\" in technology: business messaging.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/next-big-thing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.naylor.com\/associationadviser\/\",\"name\":\"Association Adviser\",\"description\":\"Leadership Strategies &amp; 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