About

About Blair & Prepare1

Hi my name is Blair Evan Ball.

Welcome, I’m pleased that you’re here – we are a lot alike. We’re both trying to keep up with the fast pace of Social Media.

My father taught me the day you stop learning is the day you die, and he lived up to that until his last breath.

As a business owner, individual, non-profit, or corporate employee you know how stressful marketing yourself and your business can be. The market moves quickly and changes frequently.

Well, not anymore. I create effective strategies that will get you more traffic, more leads, increase brand awareness, raise more funds, and more sales – with less stress and more organization.

                                        I’m Blair, and I love what I do.

                                     (And Photography. And “Sports.”

I grew up in a middle class household; my dad was in insurance sales, and my mom stayed at home. My dad’s motto was become a student of whatever business, or industry you are part of. Never stop learning, no matter your age.

Because when you’re always learning – you can share and impact others in a positive way.

I grew up loving sports, and loved competing in football, basketball, and track. In high school we won state in football and basketball. I was fortunate to win state twice in the high jump while setting the state record one year competing as an AAU athlete – Amateur Athletic Union.

My love for competition and sports gained me a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma where I lettered as a freshman and met my current wife Christi.

Sports taught me about persistence, winning, losing, and picking yourself up and pressing on.

My first job out of college was marketing and sales – for Xerox. One of the test branches to get the first Xerox computer. Developed a new passion – Technology. Boy has technology changed!

After Xerox I moved into financial services – doing mortgages. First as an originator and then moved up, eventually running a national division for Wells Fargo with over $1 Billion in annual sales.

I served on Wells Fargo President’s leadership Committee, Pricing Committee, Strategy Committee, and Marketing Committee.

Running both sales and operations was a great learning experience to be able to empathize with both.

During my tenure in the financial world I founded three non-profit associations, and served on the board of a national non-profit.

That experience was invaluable to me to understand and apply hiring, defining mission, organizing, team building, budgets, and fundraising.

Sure, there were some tough moments gaining traction and raising money.

The highlight came when I was Legislative Chairman and helped arrange the first meeting with the Secretary of HUD – Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C. with then current chairman Henry G. Cisneros.

In need of a hobby to balance things out in my life, my good friend growing up suggested I take up photography since I seemed to have liked it when I was younger.

My new learning journey had begun at the Memphis Camera Club where I became field trip chairman, then treasurer, then vice-president and then served for two years as president.

I combined my love of sports with photographing triathlons, ½ marathons, marathons, and events for businesses in the Mid-South Region.

During my tenure in 2009-2010 as President we needed a new website, and being a non-profit we didn’t have the funds to build and maintain one.

My learning mode kicked in and before I knew it, I had built my first website from scratch with over 2,000 photographs. I learned you have to know design and be organized on paper what you want.

More importantly I was learning about Social Media and search engine optimization. How this new way of marketing was taking the Internet by storm. I learned about keywords and discovered to my initial dismay that the Memphis Camera Club was on page 26 of Google for some of those keywords. Yep…I became a student and with no money got us to page 1 of Google #2 spot behind Camera Club of New York with over 45 million pages.

My friends encouraged me to continue down the Social Media path. One of my friends G.E. Russ Russell a former senior executive with Holiday Inns introduced me to Fran Persechini – CEO of the Collierville Chamber.

Fran asked me to conduct a lunch and learn back in early 2010 to the members on Social Media.

Even the best athletes in the world need a coach, why not individuals and businesses?

The idea of Social Media and my sports background fostered the idea of “Social Media Coach.”

School is never out for the PRO!

That inspired me to start writing. Now please understand…my English teachers didn’t take a liking to me, nor I to them.

With fear and trepidation I penned three e-books in 2010. I learned if I can do it, you surely can do it!

• Facebook for Business Made Easy
• Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy
• WordPress Blogging for Business Made Easy

I learned to overcome my fears, and that knowledge instills confidence.

The challenge daily now becomes keeping up with the vast amount of changes and the impact those changes have on you, and your business.

Today, everything I do – from workshops, speaking, blogging, and coaching is about impacting you, your business, your division, and you’re non-profit to get results, from coaching social media.

I believe that we are experiencing a dramatic shift in the way consumers engage with businesses. We are moving away from the traditional model of marketing to Social Media Marketing.

Want to follow me elsewhere online? No problem. I’m most active on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn. I’m on other profiles as well, but these are the ones you’ll get a faster response.

I am a volunteer at SCORE – Counselors to American Small Business | The Memphis Chapter.  I am on the Board of Directors for Theatre Memphis.

Want to contact me? You can use the contact form or email me at Prepare1@comcast.net for anything social media related or to hire me as your coach!

Thank you for stopping by. YOU are my business, and my mission is to grow YOUR business.