Given that the name of my company is graveyard innovation. I think it's fitting that we're recording this update at night, I wanted to make a quick video just so that you could see me so that we could connect and so that I could share with you what I've been up to

the last few weeks. 

Because I think it's important for you to understand. And it really represents the culmination of not three weeks of work, but really two and a half years of work. And, and in some ways, a lifetime of work. And I'm, I'm really humbled to be sharing this particular moment. With each of you. I have spent my entire adult life thinking about ways to make this world better. And we typically think of creativity as the connection of novel ideas, or the connection of or commercialized, commercialized and like original ideas, right. Innovation is commercialized creativity.

I actually think pretty activity using Dobroqski who's a Polish psychologists definition, which is creativity is about new visions for humanity.

And that's really what I have spent my professional career thinking about how first having first really having a new vision for how people could fit into their own intuition in both their personal and professional lives, then thinking about how they could really monetize and create profit in ways that were sustainable and value driven for both the business owner and for the customer, and anyone else who engage with that business. And now in graveyard innovation, really thinking about if we are serious about our work, if you're serious about the work of compassion of care, if we are serious about the work of sustainability, healing, if we are serious about the work of compassion, and connection, what kind of innovations are needed at this moment in time, how do we bring those innovations both to customers and a marketplace and then ultimately, to a national or even a global audience. 

So I want to keep this really short. And there's really three things that I want to share with you. The first is why I feel this is such an opportune time to be a part of graveyard innovation, and to be working with me. And I will keep that very brief. The second piece is what you can expect to receive for me in the next 24 hours, and when you can meet with me, and when I'll be available to speak with you privately and personally.

And the third piece is the systems and structures that I have been setting out over the last two years early thinking about our last two years and setting up over the last three weeks. And I feel right that each of you deserve a you know something, it's gonna be really powerful for you and your business, not just something that's really powerful for me and my business. And I believe that, that we've delivered that and put in place a delivery system for that over the last three weeks. So I think, and it just occurred to me today that I am not just okay at the work that I do. 

Even as a child, I was fairly bad at showing my work. Pretty obstinate about not doing that. And I realized I really carry that tradition into graveyard innovation. Over the last two years, I have innovated well over 30 businesses, which includes transforming brands from one brand to another awesome in the brand value, the brand alignment and the brand aesthetic or, or how it looks. many examples of that taking boys before business and making it girlfriends not gurus is one example that stands out in my head with that taking

I mean taking Wendy business, liberty, hypnosis and adding on the catalyst project, we've often added new business models, new products, new services, and I have a lot of evidence that the way that we have marketed and gone about this actually works. You know, we work with the client, Valerie Bertinelli consulting, who, you know, our graphics that we made for her because they are narratively cohesive, forget, former views on Twitter, or form of us on Facebook or Twitter, far more, you know, retreat, retweets, the videos that we made for Karen Perry, who's a life coach and really worked with her around branding The Seven Principles of peace into the seven principles of corporate innovation and, you know, shifting up the way that she was approaching her customer base. So, you know, I have a lot of anecdotal evidence and a lot of validity as well as data that I think backs up the different things that that we're doing. And so I believe it's a really opportune time to be here. 

Because I have been working creatively and writing for well over 15 years, you know, I was going through all the work that I have done, I've created probably 30 plus info products for myself that I've sold, I've done probably 1520 live events and workshops, I've done well over 300, webinars and, and group coaching things. I've sent thousands of emails, including one every day, when I was starting out called spiritual soundbites, I created a campaign to support gay marriage called it's personal to me, which you know, received, you know, statewide press attention, including from NPR, you know, original, a new branding. And so this is kind of all over the work that I have done.

 And so I'm not putting myself out there as Gee, I have some creative ideas and look at me, I'm putting myself out there as I have a long track record of commercializing creativity. And I think it's really, really important that I start to show more behind the scenes what I've been doing. The second piece of things that I want to talk about is each of you what I have done over the some of you for a little bit of a longer time. But what I've really organized and synthesize over the last few weeks, as I have made sure that everybody who is a client here has both a story which is to say, a narrative that can be converted to messaging, video scripts, press releases, pitch, you know, pitch packages for whether it's meeting planners for the speaking agency, or whether it's corporate clients, and that we have strategy, which is to say, not an idea about how we might gain power, and when clients and customers and profit, but a step by step plan for each of you, that I think will really guide you toward your goals. And obviously, this needs to be filled, filled in somewhat by you, because it is your business, but you'll all be receiving individual strategy notes from me, I'd like you to review those notes.

And I'll also in all, you'll also be getting a note from me about when I'm going to have open office hours, sure is the thing not to do,

don't email me about it don't mean if you you know, don't, there's no need to text me about it. Really. I mean, you can text to kind of see if I'm available during those hours. But we've put together a really robust communication platform, it's going to be really clear once you get in there to see when I'm available, and how you can reach me. And you know, I will be available many, many hours each week for all of you to call me with any questions that you have. And I think, you know, given the fact that we have around 20 clients and graveyard right now,

I think it's fairly remarkable that we have strategies, stories and step by step execution plans for each of you, I consider I'm extremely proud of that.

One of the things that I just want to share quick is working my entire life on behalf of other people. without really any kind of break, I had to think long and hard about where my heart wasn't where my compassion was the last three weeks, because at the beginning of graveyard innovation, I told you that, you know, we may not be the most, you may not be the best at everything we're doing. But we can be the people who care the most. And I know that I have remained in complete alignment and integrity. 

With that I have thought about each of your businesses for dozens and dozens of hours, I have file upon file of research to demonstrate that piles of notebooks and a lot of what you'll be seeing in your strategy notes as well are I have made specific contacts and done, you know, specific connection points for each of you in your business to start you in a process of getting connected to the people that I think will really help you grow your business. 

I just share that with you. Because I was getting really down on myself for why I wasn't just going, going, going, going, going going and why I had to take some reflection time for for for me. So you know, I just wanted to say that the third thing that I want. So once you review your strategy notes, and we will talk and I can answer any questions that you have. And e can kind of go from there. 

The first thing I think I'm the most excited about. So what are the systems that I've set up for each of you? Well, we up then some of you know this, but I've been working on for about a year now and innovation platform or an innovation portal, we've actually expanded it to be an innovation and execution platform or portal for each of you. So there are two pieces of this that I want to share. So part like sub point here is like what's kind of available to anybody that gets access to this innovation execution portal, which will only be current clients so and that you know, anyone else who comes in as a client, obviously. 

So the first part is a series of curated resources, interactive tools, including press release tools, editorial guideline tools, content inventory, an assessment tools, media monitoring for each of your business, so that you can kind of see what news events are, you know, relevant to what's going on for you, you know, ongoing notes, you'll have access to my personal strategy notes, things like what do I think about email marketing? Why do we think content is king is a really silly way to approach your marketing, what do I think about storytelling, what I think about websites and interactive this have a couple partnerships we're rolling out. 

And really some support around the mindset of innovation, because actually, all of you should be your failures should outnumber your successes, so that your success can outweigh your failure. And so a lot of support around just the mindset of innovation and creativity and how to monetize it as well to submitting task requests is super easy on there, as well as

my Open Office Hours. But what we've done is we've actually customize this to each client. So you don't have just a giant list of resources, or a giant list of videos or giant list of classes. All of this is specifically curated for you. And the second part of this is that element, right. So what you'll actually have access to in here is our specific lesson plans, because we're going to have a skilled assessment done for each of you so that you can be held accountable to upgrade your mindset to, to gain or to sharpen skills, if there's something lacking in the speaking agency clients are a little bit different to the grave your clients when it comes to that, but you know, you'll see all that specific strategy notes as well. 

I really do encourage speaking agency clients at this point to become full Gregor clients for super easy way of doing that, because it just gets you full access to absolutely all of the services and ensures that you have a proposal with targeted innovations and really looking and going through each of the businesses, there is no business that does not need targeted innovations and or some narrative upgrading, speaking agency side, not not huge things in most cases, but I really think it would make a huge big difference. So you know, I'll be sending you this and you can see, and you can explore this innovation portal.

I really think it you know, we've included in there things like Daily Execution plans to do want that you can really customize it based on what you want. We've included accountability and metrics tracking, so that we really know where you're at, and you have an easy way to submit things to us as well, as well as a very robust communication platform and way to get ahold of us because I know that's been 

a problem and I certainly haven't been happy with where we are no what I've done and I'll talk to you more about this, I'll do another video kind of about the innovation portal and I'll screen share so you can kind of see what I'm talking about. 

But I want it was really important to me that if we move forward with greater if we were going to continue to support you because I don't believe there is a better person on this planet right now to help conscious entrepreneurs creatively move forward into the world if I did, I would tell you to go to them and you know, but happily right so I wanted to make sure if we're going to move forward with this that we really make it worth your time. 

So here's the unique opportunity that we've created for for each of you and I'm really excited about this so the first thing is is that if you are great for your client and you know speaking agency clients you willing to become a greater client for this to make sense like you'll see why in a minute but for everyone who is a graveyard client I will if you are interested work with you to personally roll out a story short to roll out your story so what we'll do is we'll I'll have Jane at dogs and my copywriters and our storytelling department draft a feature, they will interview you and maybe audio, it may be written, you know, we'll do like a big article and then and it will use are nonlinear storytelling model, right. 

So different pieces of it will be on social different pieces of it will be a media different pieces of it will be all kinds of multimedia formats, it's going to be extraordinarily cool. And what we will do is we will, you know, you'll get stuff to us, we'll get stuff to you. And then we will roll this out in a way that makes sense.

We'll create this story, we will then do media and press about it. And we will focus on you don't focus on some of the aspects that graveyard helped to it, but will really focus on what is your new vision for humanity, what is the new vision that your businesses, you know, really rolling out, and I will focus shining a light on you. And I will do press on your behalf, including local press, which I think is extraordinarily important.

It's beneficial, because obviously, it will edify you, it will elevate you, it will get your message out there in a way that is not overly self promotional. And it will let you see how I operate and how I think and how I really do business. And you will have begun essentially my full endorsement, you can use this again and again and again. So I will help you roll out either her, you know, your full story or some piece of your story, depending on what makes sense. And then you'll work with my team, you know, so I think that's extremely exciting. And I will then include your business your story in the talks that I'm going to give.

And I've been thinking a lot about that in the last three weeks. And, you know, it's really my job at this point to go sell the vision of graveyard, which is all about transformation through conscious creativity. So that means that in the states that I am on, your story will most likely be talked about, obviously, some shorter and some longer depending on the venue. But I think that's an extremely cool deal. Because it means that you'll be in my pitch deck, it means that you will get a lot of exposure, a lot of video clips, and a lot of things that you can use and a lot of referrals from me. 

The second thing is that if, and this is for speaking agency clients, and for greater Atlanta, the innovation portal, we've created direction, go market and sell it to different companies. So what because we can customize it so easily based on what a company is looking for what they want to improve. So for example, you know, know that corporate we know, and Jamie Greenberg is, you know, huge person who talks about this. So, thank you, Jamie. But we know that there is a creative and Holly born I should mention, we know there's a creativity crisis in classrooms, in corporate and in our culture, more generally, our innovation portal helps with that. 

And so what we're offering it the ability to do was a great theater speaking agency client is to become part of our portal in by by submitting a message or a class or course or by being available in and I should say, being listed as a service provider when we go and market this to different companies. So for example, if you are dealing emotional intelligence, are you dealing hypnotherapy or you deal in creativity Are you deal in, you know, whatever it is that you deal risk, or I am, you know, cutting hair, whatever it is, then we will customize different innovation portals and packages using different classes and modules for different needs. 

Which means that you will get residuals when we sell the innovation portal. And you will have the ability to be booked by these companies. And through graveyard as a service provider. And as a workshop leader, speaker for different companies, which means essentially, that I will be doing a lot of the work to market and sell you and bring in business, there's a lot of other things that I you know, that I want to talk to you. 

I just think that is huge, right? The ability to have us rolling story publicly and promotional in a way that is unique, and I think fairly wonderful. And secondly, to really become a part of something that is going to be in who knows, classrooms, companies that individuals are going to buy that will be customized and specific for them that will generate referrals for you, that will give you residual sales for every portal that we sell, and will really give you a connection to your own community of ongoing creatives and ongoing innovators.

The last thing that I just super wanna mention really, really quickly here is that the kind of final thing that we've done is we've really tried to take your feedback, your concerns, your desires, you know, the things that you off, and you want made better, and the things that really represent the values and the deep, deep, rich like just the really rich value system of gravy of innovation and our rich history that we have crazily over the last couple of years, because it's been so amazing to work with some cool people and integrate

that. So that's why you're going to see open office hours a chat box, lots of ways to get us that's what you're gonna see task submission system and processes. That's why you're going to see weekly arrange connections where every single week we are connecting you with at least one person who can help you advance your interest in help you advance your business either, you know, by gaining your credibility by gaining clients beginning you profit by and what that means is that we're gonna make one connection for you a week for as long as your client so if you're a client for a year, that means you should have 52 referral partners, 52 connections, 52 people that are driving business for you by the end of the year. So, you know, walk away with a new partner essentially every single week and a lot of support around what it really means to be, you know, one of those weirdos doing something creative in the world. 

So I am thrilled I will be putting this all in context by sending you specific strategy notes and It is very good to be back.

Michael Mapes, CEO