Right at Home does a great job at helping out with folks in their homes that are not able to do everything themselves. They’ve been in business for a year but are now celebrating their “official” grand opening. If you’d like to learn more about them, call Joyce at 925-256-4663 or check out their web site at www.rah-mtdiablo.net.
Often times we try too hard to create the biggest possible, most bestest, attract EVERYBODY marketing program. Unless you are Coca Cola and have deep pockets you will go broke trying. That has been GM’s strategy for years and it broke them! They made a different car for everybody and had so many models that even before the economy crashed and burned they were in trouble. Toyota on the other hand, worked at being just some things to some people. They did not make a Hummer nor a 2.5 ton truck. They started AND EXCELLED at small cars and only after some success did they venture into larger cars and trucks. That’s how they became the number one car maker in America. Of course, you need to make sure that the technology you use doesn’t try to kill your customers if you want to stay on top!
When you have limited resources start to look to who you really service. Take a peek at who comes into your shop. Regardless of who you want you need to deal with who you have as a customer. Chances are it is a slice of humanity not every one with a pulse. ‘Tis better to narrow cast with a small net with small holes and capture the fish to feed your family than to broadcast with a large net with big holes and miss the fish in the pond. That will not feed your family!
So look at what you do I find that one thing, that one slice of pie that you excell at and do that. Then tell every one that is what you do!
It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep thanks to the onset of the allergy season. So as i flick channels I catch a golf show that is talking about putting. It reminded me about one of the things I like about golf is you have to focus and control your mind in order to play and not break things. If you are not able to quiet the one thousand voices in your head or at least get then to say something helpful then you are going to hate the game.
I feel the same thing works in the day to day of our lives. Too often we let our insecurities rattle around our head and don’t put them in their place. Would it not be better to think that you can make it and than to think you will fail.
Henry Ford said it best when he state that some people think they can and some think they can’t. And they are both right.
I was watching a program on nano technology yesterday and it got me to thinking. Nano technology is the manipulation of organic at the molecular level… really small stuff. Anyway, one of the comments was that with nanobots, that would be REALLY small robots, that each one would not be intelligent but as more of them come into existence that the collective would gain in intelligence.
Kind of creepy and sounds like the Borg from Star Trek!
What got me to thinking was that often when we hang out with smart people we tend to become smarter. I don’t mean that your IQ goes up 89 points but when you hang with creative, out of the box types, after a while you start to see things differently.
One example would be when I first started with the Chamber, when any chamber did an event we might check with our neighbors for advice but generally we stuck with our own volunteers even for critical things or something that did require some knowledge. Then Jay Lifson and I started helping each other at our big events. It is great to have competent “professionals” helping you when the world is running wild. It worked great and now we are discussing with other chambers the idea of a core of professionals that each chamber can call on to do those things that we have had lots of experience with and let the other volunteers do the pouring and such. We even have interest from some chambers across the bay!
After that we have helped to resolve a number of difficult issues here in CC County that with out the collective really did not even get attention much less energy to resolve. In some cases our collective wisdom helped to make us aware of things that were not on our radar at all!
So look at whom you are hanging with… do they bring value to what you do? Are you smarter when you associate with them?
Check out the fun at Outback at the February mixer in Pleasant Hill:
join us in March for the Mega Mixer in Martinez. check the Chamber web site for more!
I read a great excerpt from a book about how to look at solving problems.
With the horror of the 2009 economy starting to fade most businesses I know are digging out as if from a typhoon. Income is down, accounts payable is up, customers are asking more for less and after all that we have to compete with the internet and its uber-cheap products from somewhere else. All of this can look overwhelming and when the solution to the problem is “I need more customers but have no money and the economy sucks,” then no reasonable solution presents its self.
What to do?
Rather than looking at solving the whole problem, try replicating what IS working for you. Fact is you must have some money coming in so look at that and see what you can do to boost that activity. I shared the story that Jessica Braverman told about how she had to change her business last year. She ended up having a better year than the year before. Basically rather than solving the big problem, which was a crappy economy, she looked at what was working for her and did those things. Worked for her and it could work for you.
So try looking for what is working in your business and you should be able to thrive even in a down economy. If you need help with tha call me. I have been know to think very differently!
I usually hate to use the word “networking” because in my mind it brings up mental images of that smarmy guy at the mixer that uses such worn out things like “win-win” and will then “task you” with something. So I was very happy when one of my favorite educators decided to do a video education thingy on networking!
Karen Frank is a long time wordsmith/branding/networking type person that really gets it when it comes to meeting people and knowing whom to spend time with. She is also a grammar queen so I am sure I will get a call about my sentence structure.
Please take the time to check out her video about networking.
I read a very interesting commentary by Thomas Sowell regarding the idea of fair. Often times I am approached by a business that is struggling with a regulatory issue, usually with the City, and what they say is they just want to be treated fairly. I think what they REALLY want is NOT being treated fairly but to do what it is they want.
I believe that one of the problems they are experiencing is that by nature a regulatory agency can ONLY be fair in a punitive fashion. If you look at most laws and regulations it is about what cannot be done and what is prohibited. As an example, look at smoking regulations. They are mostly about where you cannot smoke and where you cannot advertise and who you cannot buy cigarettes. Sure they have included language that seems to say what can be done but it is part of the ‘cannot do’ in reality. So when these folks say they want ‘fairness’ they really want to be exempted from the regulation. And they never get that! Any regulatory agency can only apply the law to every one and if what you want is in conflict of that then you are out of luck! What will happen is they will then enforce that regulation on EVERYONE.
One of the points that Mr Sowell makes in is article is that life is not fair. What I took away from that is that too often we look for external forces to blame for whatever issue or trouble we are experiencing and rarely do we take the time to try to resolve what is going on. If business is down because of the economy we can either choose to blame the President, Bush or Obama depending on your political persuasion, or we can work to get more people in the door. Which strategery do ya thinks might get the job done!
Yes, life is not fair! The City is not fair! The County is not fair! The bank is not fair! The economy is not fair! And the list goes on.
Rather than trying to get fairness distributed work toward resolving the real issue and that is you want more business. If we spend our time carping about fairness then that IS what you will get. And as I used to tell parents when I couched softball, every one wants fairness until it is done to them!
So you are right, life’s not fair! Get over it!
I heard over the weekend and wanted to share: A married couple had made a habit of enjoying breakfast each morning facing the neighbors house. And each morning the neighbor made a habit of hanging her laundry out to dry. The wife would complain to her husband about how dingy the wash was and that she would be embarrassed to have anyone see such a sight. This went on for months until one morning the wife noticed that the neighbors wash was all bright and shiny and remarked to her husband that at last she had learned how to do the wash. The husband contradicted her and said, “No, dear, I got up early this morning and washed the window.”
Too often we need to clean our windows but instead talk about how bad some one else is doing. So, if you think your lawn looks bad, try cleaning the windows. you may be surprised by what you see.
Why Have an Online Presence
March 10th, 2010I saw an interactive map that the BBC has on how the internet has grown from 1998 to 2008…
That alone should convince anyone that they need to have an online presence!
Tags: online marketing, online presence
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