Mike's Point Of View

You guys will have to forgive me for not writing a Saturday Night Special post.

The Simple One, that’s me, has left the building.

My good friend, Ricky Skaggs, is in town for a concert at The Big E and my family and I are in the front row, enjoying some great bluegrass music and some fine food.

If there’s anything besides college basketball that we Kentuckians know about, it’s Bar-B-Que and Bluegrass. Our native son, Ricky Skaggs and his band, Kentucky Thunder are the epitome of bluegrass for us Kentuckians.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some simple ways to sell more of your product.

PS - Ricky and I went to different schools together, ’bout about 8 years apart.

PS2 - This post contains several instances of link leak. Don’t be alarmed, it’s not dangerous.

I just read a great story a salesman who used to be a boxer. Having boxed in my younger days and being one of the world’s best salesmen ( that’s a joke, son, as Foghorn Leghorn would say ), it seemed to be a story that would interest me.

The guy was better at getting sales jobs than he was at keeping them. Seems every time someone would insult him, he’d punch ‘em in the mouth. I’m liking him already.

It mattered not if it was a boss, coworker or customer.

I’ve gone out to do some fantastic selling, only to have my day ruined by some butthead who’s not loving his life like I do mine.

Customers, suppliers and coworkers have all said things to my 6′2″, 250 lb. freight train-like self and I’ve let it ruin my day. Mostly because I didn’t want to go to jail for stompin’ a mudhole where their butt used to be.

Now I’ve got a better way to handle this situation. And with all the insults that some bloggers seeem to want to direct towards other bloggers, maybe it’ll be a way for them to handle that situation, too.

Some people never learn that in a pissin’ match, both people get pissed on.

So what should you do if you’re in a conversation with someone and you think ( or know ) that they’ve just insulted you ?

Try this first - ignore them.

Is what they said as plain as the nose on David Feherty’s face ? Is it too bad to ignore ?

( The story linked above is worth your time to read all the way thru )

If so, try this - Look them in the eye long enough to break their poise. Staring is okay, no matter what your mother said.

Then ask them to repeat what they said. Say something along the lines of - ” Could you please repeat that. I seem to have misunderstood you. I thought, for a second there, that you insulted me by saying …. “

The chances are that they will immediately apologize and recant their stupid remark.

If not, then you can do whatever it is you feel is the proper way to handle it.

Maybe you could just turn the other cheek and walk away nicely

Do you have any other solutions that would be worth trying ?

And can anyone tell me why bloggers have to comment on every action that other bloggers make ?

I’m especially sick of blog network owners always having to comment on other blog networks actions.

It’s really getting old.

We all have more than enough to do, so why add more work and waste energy making sillyass remarks about other networks or blogs.

Did I just do what I said I didn’t like ? I hope not.

We just got back from a birthday dinner at Applebee’s. Daughter #1 turned 22 and wanted to try some of the new menu items that were crafted by her favorite chef, Tyler Florence.

Tyler’s one of my 3 favorite chefs to watch on the Food Network, too, and it was a great move for Applebee’s to add his name to theirs, kinda like the casino’s are doing in Vegas.

But Tyler can’t be in every restaurant to oversee the service, so you’ll be at the mercy of the local college-age crowd to make or break your meal.

It took me several years to convince my wife to go to another Applebee’s after her and all three daughters had a terrible experience at the Clarksville (IN) location.

Finally, I caught her weak from hunger and convinced her to eat at the St. Augustine (FL) location and we had a great meal.

Our local reataurant, Owensboro (KY) has been hit or miss, service wise, and tonite’s fiasco was par for the course.

First our waitress, Hannah, didn’t think we could get rid of the fries that came with the new Bruschetta Burger. ” Why not ? “, was my question. ” Because they’re new dishes,”, was the reply.

I’m betting that’s not the policy and if it is, they need to change it quickly. I ain’t eating oily garlic fries with my meal unless I absolutely am forced to.

Next, daughter #3’s meal came out with (regular) fries that she’d asked to be substituted with Onion Peels.

Our waitress didn’t bring our food, so we wanted to wait for her to tell her we needed her to fix that. Too bad she was busy running outside with Carside To Go orders and we were halfway finished with our meal before she came by and we were able to ask her for some Onion Peels.

As we were finishing our meal, without Onion Peels, she finally brings ‘em and doesn’t bring the dipping sauce. She performed a Stop-n-Drop with ‘em, so we couldn’t get her attention … again.

Finally, she came by with the check and I asked for 3 to-go boxes for the ladies with me, who cannot eat all the food at one sitting AND one for the Onion Peels and some dipping sauce in a to-go cup.

She came back with the sauce and two to-go boxes. Not four, two.

We crammed it all into the two boxes, left some food behind and wished she’d hurry and bring back my credit card and let us end our misery.

What the heck kind of tip do you leave for someone who doesn’t do anything right ?

Nothing ?

10% ?

15% ?

You tell me.

By the way, I had the Bruschetta Burger and Tyler did a helluva job making it one of the Top 5 burgers I’ve ever eaten. It’s a little smallish, but it’s at least a 4.75 out of 5.

The parmesan fries that are the side items are okay, but I’d prefer they come up with a choice between 2-4 items. Steamed veggies would be nice, since us 250 pounders don’t really need those fried taters.

The ladies had some of the other new menu items and they were all good additions to their menu, but I’ll let them tell you about it on their own food blog.

Service is still king, no matter if it’s food or another industry. They’ll have to step it up a notch or the $100 + that I spend to take out my crew of five a couple times a week will go somewhere else.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a great book to buy to help you become the White Paper Czar.

Michael Stelzner, who also writes a blog called Writing White Papers, has created THE resource for anyone who wants to learn about these 9 key topics :

1) The marketing power of white papers: How can a white paper generate sustaining, long-term sales for a business ?

2) Selling via education: Are the days of selling features and functions forever gone ?

3) A 10-step process to creating a white paper: Is there a process to creating white papers that works ?

4) Proven white paper outlines: Do outlines really help with writing a white paper ?

5) Writing compelling titles: Do titles really matter and how should they be written ?

6) The core components of compelling papers: What are the critical ingredients of any white paper ?

7) Extracting information via interviews: Why is interviewing experts so important for white papers ?

Where to find research: Where can anyone go to find information that can strengthen a white paper ?

9) Generating leads with white papers: How can white papers be used to generate leads ?

If you’d like to check out a sample chapter before you buy, click HERE.

Personally, I’m going to teach a couple of my young staff members how to write white papers and see if they can freelance their way to a new car or a lake house with the proceeds.

Thanks for a great business plan and model Michael !

I’ve enjoyed Michael’s blog so much that I’ve added him to my blog roll.

Oh yeah, I gotta give credit where it’s due. I was made aware of this resource by none other than Bob Bly, who told me that it was a tremendous resource and he’s right.

A few weekends ago, I was having an enormous amount of trouble with two of our computers.

They are used heavily for photo editing by the four yound ladies who use them about 16-20 hours a day. Yes, that means 16-20 hours a day each one is in use. They work in shifts. Some are day-people, some are morning-people, some are night-people.

I had been using software that I purchased to help keep the hard-disks defragmented. When you use Photoshop that many hours a day, you’re gonna have problems with fragmentation.

I work a lot on weekends making sure our computers will stand up to another weeks work. Extra virus scans, defrags, cleanups, etc.

This particular weekend, 15-16 July, I had a terrible time with one unit that gets the brunt of the Photoshop duty.

Diskeeper, which is what i used before now, would not finish it’s defragmentation.

I turned it off and tried the built-in utility that comes with XP Pro.

No deal. Would not finish.

It’s now about 2 am and I’m pissed and sleepy, but I will not quit.

I went on scavenger hunt for a new defragger.

I found info about some that I’d tried in the past and I found info on the two that would not work for me.

Then I found Perfect Disk 7 and it had a free trial. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I downloaded and put it into action.

Wow ! Is all I can say. It not only worked, it worked wonders !

I had fewer fragments after one pass then I’d ever had after several scans with my old utilities.

And it had left me with a larger, more usable partition than I’d ever had available. That, in and of itself, is a Photoshopper’s dream !

I’ve now been using it, I bought two copies, for 2 months and all I can still say is Wow !

I’ve had less trouble, our units run faster and they need fewer defrags than ever before.

The reasons for all this is spelled out on their website, so I’ll link you there at the end of this post, because they can tell you their story better than I can.

As for me, here’s my 8 Reasons To Use Perfect Disk :

1) I have Version 7 - it’s the best by far and it’s only going to get better with Version 8.

2) Auto-Pilot Scheduling and a Screensaver mode for when you didn’t think to make good use of this downtime.

3) Resource Saver technology. They’ve got it and you need it.

4) Space Restoration Technology - that’s what creates that very larger, very usable partition.

5) It’s Microsoft Certified and works on really big drives, unlike other utilities.

6) Single File Defrag - some of you have really big files that you work with and this will quickly defrag that and let you get back to work.

7) Their new I/O and CPU throttling features that won’t bog down your system.

One and done. Perfect disk gets it done with one pass.

Go by and give it a try. They offer a free trial, which gives you more than enough time to evaluate it.

Perfect Disk 8 has the Simplenomics Seal of Approval !

PS - This is a totally independent review. I received no compensation, nor do I have any ties to the product, the manufacturers nor am I affiliated in any way.

Just in case you missed the post due to the Labor Day holiday and your feed reader being overwhelmed, go right now and read the best interview advice ever written.

The absolute best.

By far.

Seth rules.

I just got in after a 13 1/2 hour day. I’ve had several really long days this week. Several.

My new RSS feed aggregator/reader thang, Feed Demon 2.0, from NewsGator is full of good stuff left over from earlier this week.

I’m tired, the freakin’ ragweed count is over 100 and my putter is broke and needs fixin’.

It hasn’t been a great week. The wife is great, as usual, and all three daughters are treasures, but outside of that, it’s not been all that.

There’s something that just ain’t right with a corporation I’ve been working with. Something’s …, uh, off. Missing. Gone. Whatever.

Then I start hitting the highlights in the RSS feeds. I’m about 50-60 in and I see The Sethmeister has a couple of posts, so I go check those out.

It’s there. It’s been there waiting for me and I couldn’t get to it. Might have made life more tolerable, but I was kept away from it and made to suffer for naught.

Compromise.

THAT’S what their problem is. Compromise.

Once they started doing it, it snowballed and became their mantra. Instead of a rarity, it’s now the accepted way.

They’re comfortable in the mediocrity. Average is their 2.0 and they like it.

I hate people that will not fight against being average.

I hate it when they give in, but not give up.

If they’d give up, they’d quit and let someone else have a shot. If they just give in, they can stay like that forever !

EEEEWWWWW !

Can you hear their battle cry -

We don’t care. Really, we don’t.

Please, do us all a favor - when you want to give in, don’t do it. Instead, give up, quit and get the hell out of the way.

If you have no sense of urgency, you have no value to the world of sales, marketing or customer service.

None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Thanks to The Sethmeister for showing me the answer to the riddle.

I’m now up into double digits with the number of ideas that I’ve shared with bloggers that have been taken to fruition.

I don’t mind sharing, well I didn’t, but am starting to, BUT I see now that the blogosphere is a populated by a different kind of person.

In the internet marketing world, where I started, when we sat down with someone, especially over a meal, and gave freely of our ideas, if you took an idea and ran with it, you invited the originator of the idea to participate. That’s basically what a “joint venture’ is. Basically, not entirely.

What I wasn’t sure of, but am now, was if the new breed of internet marketer, known as bloggers, was the type to use an idea and not even invite participation or if they, as bloggers would seem to be, would be sharers.

Most bloggers are not sharers. Most are users and takers. They take your time and use your idea. They run away to a dark corner and code like hell til they have a new service, project or blog.

That’s just wrong.

From now on, I will be more careful with my sharing, whether it’s in private, on the phone or over a meal. There may only be paid consultations.

I’ve got plenty of ideas left and they’ll pay more than the ones I’ve shared, so it’s not a big loss.

I might have taught you all you know, but I didn’t teach you all I know.

Peace.

PS - I’m taking the day off to go play golf. I will not expand on this post. No names. No fingers to be pointed at a specific site.

You have no idea who these bloggers are. If you think you do, you’re wrong.

EDIT - Notice the phrase ‘double digits’ - this isn’t a specific or one-time thing. It’s over a period of a year. It does not point specifically to anything new, just released or current.

The photo used is to point you to a way to work with bright ideas.

EDIT #2 - This does in no way, shape or form refer to Brian Clark or Chris Pearson and their soon to be launched service.

I’m dumb, but I ain’t that dumb.

I came home last night to find out that Pluck, my FORMER RSS feed aggregator has been down for two days.

They are not responding to pleas for help on their forum.

I called their office and got no answer.

They don’t respond to support requests.

Look like another dot-bomb. Sadly. Unfortunately.

I’m not in the frame of mind needed to do a lot of thinking, so could you tell me which service or software product you use and why I should use it ?

I had over 100 feeds that I watched, so without the ability to export them, it looks like I’ll be starting from scratch. Again.

Thanks for your help.

Edit - My server logs indicate that 78 visitors, so far this month, use Bloglines and only 13 use NewsGator. Means nothing specific to me, just facts.

I’ve tried twice to setup a free account at Bloglines and their email will not come thru to me.

THAT does mean something to me, like use something else knucklehead !

EDIT x 2 - 8:31 am Monday, AUG 21 - Oh great … now Pluck has come back to life and I’ll have to choose whether to complete the overhaul or give ‘em another chance.

I haven’t done this in a long time, but while reading a new blog ( for me anyway) today, I saw this valuator that’s powered by Technorati.

I’m completely flabbergasted at the value they place on my simple little blog.

Does anybody else think their blog is way overvalued ?

Can anybody give me a better way to evaluate the worth ?

I’m thinking of letting go of a blog, maybe two, to pay in advance some of the college expenses for 2 of my daughters.

If you know of anybody who’s looking for a blog or two, have ‘em take a look at our network page and shoot me an email.