I woke up this morning and realized this is going to be my 500th post.  That’s a lot of posts and I wanted it to be special.  My first one was on February 23rd 2009.   Being such a milestone, I was struggling for an appropriate topic.

At 400 posts I wrote about what had I learned with the first 400. You can see it here.   It was a good post and all the lessons I learned still apply — even more so at times. But what to write at 500?  I was struggling for a topic all morning until I realized what got me to 500 — this community.

The a sales guy community has been the key part in making it to 500.  Your comments, retweets, links, and emails have been have been extremely motivating.   Yes, I write for me, but I also write to share and sharing is about giving not getting.

I measure the success of this blog by how informative it is.  How provocative I can be.  How challenging to conventional thought it is.  How well it entertains and the level of engagement it creates.   The determinant of whether or not this blog is succeeding comes from you.  It’s about what this blog gives to you that’s important to me.

I wanted to build a blog that people felt was valuable and helpful.  I wanted this blog to be a tool for both sales and non sales people.  I wanted people to WANT to come here and enjoy what they read, whether or not they agreed.  I wanted this to be a place where people could engage with one another in the comments.  I wanted this blog to be a place where in just 2 minutes people would leave with more than what they came in with

What’s happened in getting to 500 posts is this community has grown.  And as it has grown, I’ve felt an increased obligation to create great content everyday.   When I’m tired, don’t have a topic, or I am being lazy all I have to do is think of this community and I get my but in gear.

I’ve gotten to the 500 post mark because of you.  Therefore, the most appropriate 500th post I could write  today would be — Thank You!

So, here it goes.

Thanks!