Archive for the ‘Marketing Experiences’ Category
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 |
There have been many relationships for me over the years. I have met many interesting people. There were the friends and teachers from grade school who you have your first real relationships. The first girl that you kissed and you knew that this time would last forever. The bully at recess, who you knew would have a tough life ahead of them. The other kids who stayed overnight to play hide and seek in the basement. The fun we had, and the dreams we had we knew would keep us all together. I had different friends in high school, some were the jocks and some were the geeks. We went to prom together like everyone else, yet it seemed that the interaction among us started to change. The feelings were stronger and the pain was longer. The weekdays were just as long as the weekends were short. The breakup after 3 months with a girlfriend seemed like this time would last forever. School was tough in other ways too. I had a lot of friends, but it seemed like there were bigger things to come after graduation. We all went our separate ways to meet other new friends. We moved on to new adventures. Meeting new people in college and working odd jobs became a whole new social experience for me. Working at a restaurant and meeting middle-aged men washing dishes seemed a little unusual, but then I began to think about what their circumstances were about. I met a girl who was about 10 years older than me and she was a single mom, she was going to school at night and she worked as a cook. Her story was how she wanted to help her son by getting him into a better school, since he had difficulties learning. The other cook was proud to moving up at the restaurant as a the head cook, he had been there for nearly 4 years. The older lady at the check out was here to make some money and to make new friends since her husband had passed away. I realized that this was just a moment for me while during school, this was a big deal to them. Some days I did not want to work, because school was getting me down. As I looked at the others and their situations, I began to realize that my experiences were not about me, but about everyone else.
After college I got a job far away from family and friends because it was the best opportunity at the time. Although, I began to see more hardships of others around me. I was not always the type who considered the glass half empty, but I guess this kind of stuff was more evident to me than the good things at this point. As I moved on into my adult life I guess I really began to understand my life lesson. I began my first real job in sales and have not looked back since. I will share my job experiences on a future post. I have learned how to better see and feel the needs of others. This has helped me in my experiences with others. No matter how difficult your life may seem, there is always someone who has a bigger challenge.
I have now begun to explore other personal experiences on the web and have enjoyed blogs and forums like these to share and read about others. Words cannot describe that the world is so much bigger than you are, look outside yourself to see inside of others and you will have a more positive social experience.
Posted in Awkward Experiences, Business Experiences, Financial Experiences, Happy Experiences, Internet Experiences, Life Experiences, Marketing Experiences, Proud Experiences, Relationship Experiences, Sad Experiences, Travel Experiences, Winning Experiences | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 |
Best Buy has really outdone themselves in the customer service arena. I received in the mail a $50 gift card and a letter from Best Buy. Please see the photo of the letter below. In the letter they state that they know I purchased a HD-DVD player and since Toshiba will no longer be producing HD DVD players the stuidos will not be releasing any more movies in the HD DVD format. Blu-ray technology beat HD DVD.
They go on to write, “…you have purchase a HD DVD player and as a result we are sening you a Best Buy gift card to treat yourself.” Additionally they end with this bit of good news, “If you are interested in trading in your HD DVD player and HD DVDs, you can visit BestBuyTradeIn.com where we accept HD DVD hardware…for addtional Best Buy gift cards base on its market value.”
Well, kudos to Best Buy and be safe in the knowledge that you have a customer for life. Like I needed another reason to not visit Circuit City. So if you were like me and bet on the wrong horse and bought a HD DVD player from Best Buy you may be receiving a gift card in the mail.
When Best Buy writes, “We truly appreciate you as a customer,” I believe them.
Posted in Marketing Experiences, Shopping Experiences, Technology Experiences | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 |
From my experience public speaking is one of the most difficult things you can do, much less prepare for. I am the founder and president of a company which requires me to speak to people on a weekly basis. Of course I am usually speaking to a smaller number of people, maybe two to five at a time.
There are rare occasions when I must speak to more and then there is usually a podium, a stage and a presentation involved. I can speak effortlessly and intelligently to two to five people. But when it grows to 20 or more, well then I get nervous. Luckily for me it passes quickly and after five minutes I’m into the flow and all goes well. Still, it helps to do some things ahead of time to make the journey from nervous stutterer to polished speaker. Here are some things I’ve learned that may help you if you are ever called on to speak in front of a group of people.
Make Notes
Everyone losses their train of thought sometimes and making notes can save you from that awkward pause as you stare into the ceiling trying to remember what the heck you were saying. Notes can keep you on task and remind you of important points to make. Don’t read from your note cards, but don’t be afraid to look at them if you need help. And be sure you have practiced with them…many times.
Practice, Practice, Practice
I practice my presentations at least a dozen times. Considering my presentations, with Powerpoint slides, last over an hour that is a lot of my time. But I’m ready and confident when I’m on stage and that makes it worthwhile. Practice with an audience of family or friends if you have to, but be sure you get an honest critique at some point.
Expect The Worst
Most likely things will go smooth, but imagine what might go wrong and be ready when it does. It is entirely wrong to try and avoid thinking about what could go wrong, how else will you prepare for it, if you ignore the possibility. This way, if it happens, you ar ready. Finally, if yo think about what could go wrong I think you will see that, in reality, it won’t be the end of the world.
Get Relaxed
Sure, I know what you are thinking. How can I relax, I’ve got to speak in front of X number of people. What I mean is get rid of other sources of stress. Be sure to get plenty of sleep. Have your clothes picked out ahead of time. If traveling, make sure all the arrangements have been made. Do something your enjoy the day or night before, watch a comedy or whatever relaxes you.
Body Language
Nothing says I don’t know what I’m doing than having your head down, shoulders slumped and poor posture. Keep your head up, chin level with the floor and for the love of Pete, SMILE! (more…)
Posted in Business Experiences, Marketing Experiences | 1 Comment »
Saturday, August 11th, 2007 |
From my experience using the Squidoo web site as a money-making online tool isn’t the best use of your time. Instead, setting up a blog of your own, with Google’s Adsense, that you host is a much better idea. But, Squidoo is easy to set up and kind of fun. It offers a community feel to it and you can rank rather quickly with it for less competitive terms in the search engines.
I have two lenses, what Squidoo calls your page, and they were a blast to create and I do add to them occasionally. The real fun for me is trying to rank my lens in the top 100. I have reached 128 but that is my personal best so far. There are over 200,000 lenses at this time. It is also personally rewarding when someone ranks or votes for you lens which you can do by visiting my Smoothie Lens and my Jean Grey-Phoenix Lens.
But I just don’t see any decent money coming from this, but my smoothie recipe blog brings in over $350 $650 per month, with little to no effort through Google Adwords. I’ll update this if I see any change or increase in my $0.00 earnings from either of my Squidoo lenses. The real use for Squidoo is using the lenses to direct traffic to your main site such as my smoothie lens to my smoothie recipe site and providing quality one-way links that the search engines will follow and reward you with higher listings in the search results.
From the Squidoo About Page:
Squidoo’s goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search. Squidoo’s goal as a co-op is to pay as much money as we can to our lensmasters and to charity. And Squidoo’s goal as a community is to have fun along the way, and meet new ideas and the people behind them.
Read more about Squidoo at The SquidLens.
I hope this helps in your decision of creating a lens and what to do with it.
I have included a YouTube video on Making Money with Squidoo.
Update 10/12/07: Well, my 2nd full month netted $11.40. I did manage to make the Jean Grey lens the #4 ranked lens overall so even having a highly ranked lens in the Squidoo ranking system won’t help, you’ll need lots of visitors to help with that.
Update 11/14/07: I earned $98.58 this month. I worked to keep it going pretty well this month.
Update 12/15/07: Earnings dipped to $48.06 for Squidoo, but I didn’t spend any time on it. So literally, money for nothing.
Update 1/12/09: I didn’t even look at the lenses hardly and my earnings went to $24.32, but I also noticed traffic dropped from Google. I do believe they are penalizing all Squidoo lenses now. We’ll see.
Posted in Internet Experiences, Marketing Experiences | 1 Comment »
