Would You Pay $40 for $20 ?
While out fighting the time vampires known as automotive repair shops, I came across this sign.
Apparently, those people that sell fireworks are doing things a wee bit differently than some of us.
Somehow, I’m thinking that there’s a reason their tables are empty.
Apparently, there was a massive group of people who wanted to pay $40 for things worth $20.
I only wish I could get them to opt-in to an email list of mine.
I’d love to send them daily emails offering them $20 for $40.
Every.Single.Day.
Does this happen where you live or is this phenomenon purely Kentuckian ?
Please tell me I’m not alone in this. Please.
CEO’s Need A Stupidity Detector
You and I both know it’s true. Almost every CEO out there needs some to stand up and say, ” That’s stupid. ”
A stupidity detector, in other words. Someone who can’t be fired for telling the truth.
Someone who will not say yes, when the answer should be no.
If you’re like me, you’re a customer more than you’re a salesman. Every day, I buy from more people than I sell to.
Breakfast, coffee, newspaper, lunch, afternoon pick-me-up drink, such as a tea from Starbucks, dinner, range balls at the club, new shoes, micro-fiber shorts or slacks, new Tommy Bahama silk shirt off eBay, ink carts from Staples, razor blades, socks, etc.
Most of the CEO’s of these companies needed someone to tell them, ” That’s stupid “, when they came up with some of their policies, ad campaigns and slogans.
We, as a group, can come up with some help for these poor over-worked CEO’s who need a stupidity detector around to help them see thru the evil plans of some of the ad agencies that bring these stupid commercials to them for approval.
Someone to say ” Not a freakin’ chance ! “, when a graphic design company brings in some ugly-ass logo.
We can help them Just Say No to an idiotic slogan.
We can help them change some of the policies that say, ” We think you’re stupid ” to their customers.
How can we help ?
By blogging about every instance we find where a stupidity detector could have prevented the sad circumstances.
By writing a paper or creating an info-product of some kind detailing their needs for this new breed of corporate hero, hereafter called the VP of Stupidity Detection.
When you find an instance of need for us to guide the CEO of the offending company, send me the details and I’ll have our ownVP of Stupidity Detection, that would be me, contact them and offer his guiding hand in removing the offending circumstance.
You can post it on your own blog/site, you can comment or Trackback here, you can email me, whatever turns your wheels … Just Do It !
How To Completely Disable A Sales Force With A Cellphone
One man and a cellphone completely disabled an entire sales organization for over 36 hours this week.
You knew cellphones were more powerful than they used to be, but you had no idea they had features like that, did you ?
I waited well over 36 hours earlier this week for a salesman to return my call.
I don’t usually wait that long, when I’m the customer, nor do I make people wait that long when the roles are reversed.
When this salesman called me back, too late to get the order, I asked him what took him so long.
Our sales manager switched our cellphone carrier and it took that long for the new carrier to pick up our service after the old one cut us off.
What ?! He did this on a Tuesday ?
You have got to be kidding me, that some knucklehead had the lack of common sense to do this on a Tuesday, instead of late on Friday … say around 6 PM, after the salesmen had all quit answering their phones for the week anyway.
If they had done it at 6 PM on Friday and it took the same 36 hours for the change to kick in, they would have started working around 6 AM on Sunday. They would have had another 24 hours or so to play with, just in case.
How can you cripple a travelling sales force like that ? No voicemail. No email. No phone … that works, that is.
Nothing but irate customers can come from a sillyass decision like that.
Simply, nothing.
Maybe I should have titled this post, ” If Goofy Was Your Sales Manager. “
Put this on your list of things you let other people do first to see if it will work or not.
Coke Suing New Coke Commercial Is Beyond Stupid
There’s only a very few times during the year that I see commercials on a network channel. Now that the NCAA Tournament is on, I’ll have to suffer thru a few of them.
I’ve got problems with this puppy all around the dial, so I’ll just name a few and you can either straighten me out or help me.
I won’t care if you disagree, so help your self.
I won’t pay you if you agree, but feel free to.
The premise is stupid. Incredibly stupid.
It just makes me feel that Coke’s people think we’re dumb and dumber. By approving that ad, they showed how little they think of our sensibilities. They also showed how dumb they are.
If you’re the one that approved that ad, turn in your executive washroom keys, pack your bags and go home.
If you’re the one’s that created that ad, lock the doors on your firm, go home and find some other line of work.
It’s another bad product, like New Coke was … only worse.
Why is it worse ? Because you’ve already made this mistake once.
Remember New Coke ? I do … barely. Bombs away !
You’re making the same mistakes that are killing the American automobile manufacturers. You’re cannibalizing your own sales and products.
Check this scenario out:
Years ago there was the Buick Skylark, the Olds Cutlass and the Chevy Chevelle.
Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth did it too.
Ford, Lincoln and Mercury were also guilty.
Same car, different name. One company selling against themselves.
Good things don’t always come in threes. Remember that.
Does Toyota do that ? Nope. They make one car per class and make it really good.
Hmmm. Wonder why they don’t compete against themselves. The Japanese marketing schools must not teach it. Neither should ours.
Marketing is supposed to sell the product, not try to win awards.
If you’ve got a humongus ad budget, do not, I repeat, DO NOT award it to anybody that uses stupidity in place of expertise, imagination, creativity or skill.
It’s your money. spend it trying to sell or promote your product to interested people. Do not allow an ad company to spend it trying to win awards for their firm.
Enough is enough.
The dumbing down of America has to stop … now.
PS - You’re welcome Coke, for all the hits this’ll get for you on your YouTube video.
You Know You Suck As A Salesman When You …
I made it thru the holiday season and past the big sales of the new year without having to strangle any salespeople.
You know … the Herb Tarlek types.
What I’d like to know today is, did any of you have any wonderful experiences with some sleazy, cheesy, greasy salespeople ?
Help a blogger with too much to do and not enough time to do it, keep his blog crisp and clean, with loads of caffeine !
I’ll resume regularly scheduled programming in a day or so.
For now, tell me about any bad salespeople in your past, present or office.
Bob Bly Is Wrong About Blogs
I read an ezine called Early To Rise, by Michael Masterson. In this particular issue, dated May 11th, it had an article written by Bob Bly. Google says he is a copywriter. He says he’s a copywriter. I say he’s ignorant. An unlearned, uneducated, unmitigated goofball, with regard to blogging.
Bob says, in an article available on his site :
” …should marketers add blogging to their arsenal of marketing tactics? Will it help sell more products and services?
Or is it – as I suspect — an utter waste of time ? A pure vanity publication that won’t pay you back even one thin dime for your effort ? “
So according to Bob, blogs used for business purposes, to promote products, are an utter waste of time.
Somebody jump in here and stop this foolish talk. Make him quit. Stop him before he sets marketing back about 75 years. Bob might be a fine copywriter, but his sense of marketing is as poor as any human I’ve ever encountered.
Need more proof of Bob’s failure to see the big picture ? Okay, here you go :
” Now here’s my hesitancy in recommending blogs as a marketing tool: I have yet to find a single marketer who says that a business blog has gotten him a positive ROI, or return on investment.
I know plenty of online marketers who make millions of dollars a year from their Web sites and e-zines, for instance. But I’ve not seen a blog whose creator says that the time and effort spent on their blog has directly put money into their pockets. “
I’m kind of biased here, but pardon me while I say several products have been marketed thru blogs of late. Since the blog that sold them probably cost them very, very little, if they sold anything at all, they returned a profit over and above what the blog cost.
He goes on to make more simply stupid determinations, such as :
” In my observation, there are two major problems with blogging as a business-building tool.
The first is that most of the blogs I encounter are rambling, streams-of-consciousness musings about a particular topic of interest to the author, largely bereft of the kind of practical, pithy tips that e-zines, Web sites, and white papers offer. “
Uh, Bob, that doesn’t sound like a business blog, a blog about a specific product or a marketing blog of any kind, that sounds like a blog that some goober writes to have a place for his mama to read about his cat, his lack of a life and his wish for a life.
Need more proof of Bob’s lack of knowledge about blogs and how they work ?
” The second problem with blogs is one of distribution.
With an e-zine, once the reader subscribes, he gets the e-zine delivered to him electronically every week or every month — or however often you send it.
But with a blog, the reader has to go out and proactively look for it. And since your contributions to your blog may be irregular and unscheduled, he has no way of knowing when something new of interest has been added. “
Anybody here get every copy of every ezine they subscribe to ? Me neither.
Anybody else heard of RSS feeds ? Bob doesn’t seem to know that you don’t have to bookmark a site and go back and hope it’s been updated. He doesn’t know that you can be alerted, by your feed reader, to a new post on every blog you subscribe to.
Let’s finish with a bang and refute more of this nonsense and idiocy :
” The problem is that there is already too much content, and we don’t want or need more. Analysis, wisdom, insight, advice, strategies, ideas – yes. But raw information, data, or content – no. And from what I can see, blogs serve up almost none of the former, and tons of the later. “
That kinda goes against every known statistic there is about the internet and peoples surfing habits.
I personally never tire of new info on the subjects that interest me. Seems Bob’s just giving us his opinion and likes listening to himself so much that he thinks he must be right. Kinda like he thinks to himself, ” I said it, so it must be true ! ”
” Blogs are, by virtue of being a form of online diary, like diaries: rambling, incoherent, and more suited for private thoughts than public consumption. “
Rambling, incoherent, not for public consumption… does this sound like something you read. None like that in my feed reader. Maybe Bob just needs to upgrade his choices of blogs.
” If you have something of value to share, there are many better formats for doing it online than by blogging, including white papers, e-zines, and Web sites. “
Wonder if Bob knows you can alert the world to a new white paper with your headline, in your RSS feed, while pinging about 50 sites that will alert a few million people to it’s availability ? Probably not. Nice of him to make it simple for me to blow his thoughts to smither-freakin’-reens ! You guys know I excel in simple.
” Even bulletin boards are interactive, so they have value by virtue of shared opinions, dialogue, and engaging conversation which may be listened to openly and publicly. “
Again, Bob has zero knowledge of blogging, knows nothing about the comments feature and real interactivity.
” But most blogs seem to be the private idiosyncratic musings of an individual, without censure or editing of any kind. And the result is like porridge: a gloppy mess, tasteless, and not very satisfying. Until that changes, I can’t see starting and maintaining a blog of your own, unless you are bored and looking for something to do, or require an outlet for self-expression. And if the latter is the case, well … why not just buy and keep a diary instead ? “
Again, that doesn’t sound like any of the over 100 feeds I read on a regular basis. Wonder if Guy Kawasaki thinks his blog is a gloppy mess, tasteless and not very satisfying. How about Bob Parsons at GoDaddy ? Andy Wibbles, is this your blog ? Darren Rowse, are you gloppy ? Paul Short, do you feel unsatisfying ? Debbie Weil, how about you ? Brian Clark, Mr. Copyblogger, do you feel like this fits you ? Jeremy Wright, are you a gloppy mess ? Jay Jennings, who has sold a lot of product thru his blog, do you feel tasteless ? Matt Furey, who has started to blog, probably because ezines are hard to get thru anymore, are you gloppy and tasteless ? Can you sell anything thru your blog ? What about you guys over at 37Signals ? You guys ever sell anything thru a blog ? Any cases of positive ROI ? I bought Backpack as it was being marketed thru their blog and I love it ! A review is on the way. Joe Vitale, do you like your blog ? Making any sales because of it ? Feeling tasteless and gloppy because you blog ? Blair Warren, what do you think about blogging and it’s viability as a marketing vehicle ? John Jantsch and the Duct Tapers, how about a comment here ? Rich Brooks of FlyteBlog, help a brother out here. Tell us what you think ? Jim Edwards, you’re blogging, podcasting and video blogging, surely you can refute some of this mess. Mike Smock, I need your input. Paul Chaney, surely you can help us here. Seth Godin, earth to Seth, you feeling gloppy and tasteless ? David Meerman Scott, surely you can offer some better advice that what this cat has spewed. Liz Strauss, what about it ? Martin, you out there ? Anybody ? Y’all just gonna let this guy call us gloppy, tasteless and all that other jazz ?
Let me leave you with the words of Aaron Tippin :
” You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything. “
Soriano’s Way Of Thinking Is Simply Stupid
I’ve been a baseball fan since before Alfonso Soriano was born, so he should listen to his elders when they try to help him understand something like this.
You ain’t in control of jack-squat !
That’s in response to his quote in regards to his trade to the Washington Nationals from the Texas Rangers, which was :
” Obviously, I have the control. Of course I’m not going to play the outfield. “
Newsflash to Alfonso, if you want the Nats to pay you, like the Rangers did last year, you’ll play wherever they say. It’s part of the Golden rule, which is, ” Those with the gold make the rules. ”
This is just another case of the inmates wanting to run the asylum. Kinda like when they sign a 7 year deal and want a raise after year 3 when they finally played like they were paid to.
Lsiten to me, son, and I’ll help you understand a small part of this equation that you’re missing.
The Rangers, in their infinite wisdom think you’re not good enough to keep at your price so they got rid of you.
The Nats, in their less than infinite wisdom, feel like you might help them, so they are willing to overpay you to see if you might just do so.
For $7.5 million a year, I’d be willing to play catcher and sell popcorn between innnings AND sign autographs after the game. Even in visiting parks !
If some team is gonna pay you $7.5 million to play, son, you’ll play where they say to play or they won’t pay you.
Ask Terrell Owens who runs the team. Him or the owner. I’ll give you 2 guesses.
Do you not watch ESPN ? Have you not seen the fallout of an athelete thinking he was bigger than the team ?
Son, you batted a whopping .268 last year. That’s .015 below your career numbers which ain’t all that grand to begin with. My God son, .268 for $7.5 million ? What the hell would we have to pay Ted Williams today for batting over .400 ? $100 million ? Do you sneak to the bank to cash a game check when you go 0-fer-5 ?
Think about this - there’s 30 MLB teams, so there’s basically 30 second basemen. You were ranked 14th among the 2-baggers for batting average. Even behind Ronnie Belliard, who’s as big as the Michelin Man.
You were about average. Wanna know what average means ? It’s just as close to the bottom as it is to the top.
Jorge Cantu of the Devil Rays was ahead of you in most categories. Wanna trade for his $316,000 salary?
Chase Utley of the Phillies was ahead of you. Want his $345,000 salary ?
No ? Then I guess you better be gald that they paid you 21 times as much as Chase got, just to be around his totals.
Better be glad they paid you almost 24 times as much as Jorge got, just to have him better your totals in several categories.
No, Mr. Soriano, you’re not in charge. And if I was the GM of the Nats, I’d be holding a news conference right now to prove that to you as I was cutting you and your already too big ego and your salary.
Want to read the whole article over at ESPN ? Click HERE.
Kentucky DOT Issues Flyswatters
So here I am heading down the Audubon Parkway today. It connects Owensboro, Ky and Henderson, KY. About 25 miles, give or take 3.
There’s a toll booth that extracts .50 cents for your driving pleasure. You can take ( State ) Highway 60, if you want a no charge 2 lane route. I chose toll and four lanes ’cause I was gonna go as fast as legally possible.
I use the cup holder in my console for change collection, for just such moments as this. When I get 50 pennies built up, I go the toll route to divest myself of them.
Today I dropped in all 50 pennies at once. What’s the big deal with that, you ask ?
Well, there’s a sign on top of the change collector that says something to the tune of , ” If you’re broke enough to use pennies, please deposit them one…at…a…time. ”
If you knew me very well, you’d know that sooner or later I’m gonna have to see why you have to deposit them one…at…a…time. I just will. Have to. No doubt.
Today was D-Day. That stands for Deposit Day. AllAtOnce ! At least 20 other times over the last 16 months, I’ve done it one…at…a…time. Or close to it.
What the heck happens, you wonder ? Does it speak to you ? Does it flash some lights and ring bells ? Does it spit ‘em back out ?
None of the above.
What happens is a large woman with a flyswatter comes out of her booth and pokes at the pile of pennies with a State of Kentucky issued flyswatter and gives you a stern look while pointing at the sign. Honest, a flyswatter and she uses the handle while holding it by the business end.
I’m assuming the stern look was because of the cold temperatures. Surely she wouldn’t give me that look, me the customer, me the only reason she has a job, me Mr. 50 Pennies himself, because I threw all 50 in at once.
I mean really, over the years since that toll booth was built, you’d figure that the state had collected enough to have the machine serviced so that customers can throw whatever they want, coin wise, in there and have it do it’s job. If not, maybe they better up the toll to .55 cents and when they get enough collected they can have the machine serviced or even put in a new one.
Why do you expect me, the customer to change ( get it ? ) the way I throw coins ? Shouldn’t I be able to just dump ‘em in and let it count ? The coin counters at the bank work like that. They don’t have to drop ‘em in one…at…a…time.
And c’mon, a flyswatter ? At least get those poor souls that collect our coins a real instrument of pokiness !
How about even having some business sponsor the pokers ?
Think about it. ” This episode of coin poking brought to you by All-State Insurance. You’re in Good Hands With All-State and Your Coins Are, Too ! ”
Or maybe the Casino Aztar gambling boat in Evansville (IN ), ” Got Poker ? We Do ! ”
There’s a myriad of ideas that we can throw out there to help the state change the way they do this pokey deed.
Next week, I’ll go that way again and I’ll take my camera with me and get you a picture of all this coin operated fun. Count on it ( get it ).
Sorry, that was bad. But not as bad as State issued flyswatters.
