Interesting Marketing Web Sites

Thinking of using models in your online ad? Read this first.

http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/10/02/how-a-pretty-face-can-push-visitors-away/

Wonder how Google works?

http://www.portfolio.com/images/site/editorial/Flash/google/google.s
Work Smarter Not Harder
http://www.futilitycloset.com/2007/11/05/work-smarter-not-harder/

More to follow.

The Unpublished Secrets of Direct Mail Marketing

In 2001 the United States Postal Service delivered 21 billion pieces of direct mail.
In 2006 the United States Postal Service delivered 32 billion pieces of direct mail.

Yes that is billions and it represents an increase of 65% in five years. I think we received about half of these at our house.

So what is Direct Mail?

Simply put, it is an advertising message mailed to a client or potential client. Direct Mail comes in three forms:

Direct mail to existing customers. Usually this is a single mail piece meaning the only message the client sees is yours! Here you are marketing ONLY to consumers who have already done business with you. This varies in cost, but plan on spending at least $0.50 per piece. You can easily spend a lot more. For $0.50 you can expect to mail a single sheet, printed on both sides. If your product is a higher ticket transaction you may want to spend more on your piece. A nice catalog will cost more than $1.00 each to print and mail. Some companies spend $3.00 or more. The question you have to ask yourself is what is a client’s business worth to you.

This cost includes postage using bulk rate (the least expensive). For tips on how to save on mailing costs, visit www.bulkmail.info. For a more technically accurate snoozer on this topic, visit www.usps.org/national/pubcom/bulkmail.pdf.

Shared mail. Shared mail is when you share the printing and distribution costs with other advertisers. Val Pak and Reach Magazine are great examples. They are remarkably efficient at reaching a large number of households for a very reasonable price. For example, Val Pak will deliver 10,000 HH starting at about $350. The downside is that these products rarely offer product exclusivity, so you have to make sure your offers are HOT!

Rented Lists. Birds of a Feather Flock Together. Rented lists allows you to take the power of the individual mailed piece and prospect for new clients. The more accurately you can profile your best current customers, the better this program will perform. List brokers will rent you the names and addresses of individuals that match your profiles. The easiest to match are demographic variables like, sex, age, “live within three miles of my store”. But the most powerful matches come when you can provide your broker with more information – “owns a car that is four or more years old” or “lists gardening as one of their hobbies”. The more specific the profile, the better the results. And the higher the cost. The more variables you include, the smaller your target becomes, but this is good news! The perfect advertisement is the one going to a qualified prospect at the exact time they are ready to make a purchase.

Work with a reputable vendor. You can do direct mail yourself, but using a reputable vendor assures that you will be placing a timely, quality piece in the hands of your clients. Here in Toledo Ohio, I have worked with the following companies and have had excellent results.

Miami Systems, Mike Sands (419) 893-7619 x14, MikeS@miamisystems.com

Valpak and Reach Magazine, Jim Slattery (419) 475-4100, JSlattery@reachusa.com

Direct Mail Works!

The single most effective advertising that you can do is to advertise to your existing customers first. Don’t believe me? Go to MyCustomersAreDifferent.blogspot.com and read “How to Capture New Customers”. I have made a fortune advertising to some one else’s best customers – the ones you thought you owned. Existing customers are seven times more likely to make a purchase than a new customer.

The Law of Three. Regardless of which method you choose, remember The Law of Three. Commit to using the product you have selected three times regardless of the perceived results of the first flight. Frequency builds action. It takes time for advertising to find its audience.

Direct Mail Doesn’t Work!

Response rates are scary. In “the good old days” it was well known that you should expect a 2% response rate. Today that is not necessarily the case. Direct Mail to existing customers can easily generate a 2% response. I have seen 7% to 11% response rates. I have also seen 0% response rates. Want a great response rate? Send out a great offer! Not average. Not “the usual”. Be aggressive. Be unexpected. And also keep in mind that you can not take percentages to the bank. You take dollars. When measuring response rates, focus on the sales dollars generated. This is an easy metric to understand.

Do the math. Make sure you track the response. All three flights. Put an envelope under the counter and put the redeemed coupons in it. Write down how much they spent. Clip the coupon to the sales order. Do something. Don’t ask your customers if they saw your ad.

As much as 80% of all Direct Mail goes straight from the mailbox to the trash can. So what can you do to keep your advertising piece from being one of the “never viewed” pieces? Don’t hide who you are. Big bright logo on the envelope. Try printing a message on the envelope (yes this costs a few cents more) giving the customer a reason to look inside. “103 new fabrics to choose from.” “Save $20 on your next…”

Finally don’t forget to use Co-op Advertising Dollars. Check with your vendors to see what is available. Yes it is a lot of work, but it is FREE MONEY. A reputable direct mail vendor will help you with the documentation.

Federal Do Not Call List

The Federal Do Not Call List has worked amazingly for our family. For five years now we have been able to enjoy our dinner in peace and quiet… Finally the federal government got something right…

No, I am afraid not. See, in their customary zeal to cater to the whims of the usual high powered lobbyists, this godsend to family time EXPIRES five years after your date of enrollment. That’s right, some time this year your phone will start ringing again with offers of aluminum siding, insurance quotes, new mortgages and a plethora of unsolicited offers.

Unless you take action. Again. The easiest way to re-subscribe to peace and quiet is to visit www.donotcall.gov and once again ask that your phone number be added to the Do Not Call list.

It is easy and you can enroll up to three numbers at a time. You will then receive an email which verifies and activates your desire to remain enrolled in this program.

There is also a discussion on the web site as to why you should not bother enrolling your cell phone number. I am not making this up. This year, Washington decided to allow companies to call cell phone numbers for solicitation purposes. Now they are advising us to not to enroll our cell phones in the program. I smell a conflict of interest, campaign contribution or worse… Here is their rationalization directly off the web site mentioned above:

"Did you get an email claiming that your cell phone is about to be assaulted by telemarketing calls because of a new cell phone number database? Those claims are not true. In fact, federal law prohibits telemarketers from using automated dialers to call cell phones. You may place your personal cell phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry, but there is generally no reason to do so."

Notice it does not say they can not call. It says they are prohibited from using automated dialers. Nothing that says they can’t simply dial your cell phone…

Enroll all your numbers if you do not want solicitous calls. It is the safe thing to do.

A Reel Video Adventure

I was talking to a local video rental merchant recently and asked if the new “video by mail” programs offered by Netflix and Blockbuster were affecting their business.

“It’s killing us.”

So what are you doing about it?

“I don’t know, but I wish we would do something… What would you do?”

Let me think about it…

This video store is located in a premium retail space in a strip center in beautiful Sylvania, Ohio. I have been a client since it opened under another name years ago. It shares space with a Little Caesars pizza and Jimmy Johns sandwich shop. What do you know, they both offer delivery!

By night fall it had become obvious to me that there were five choices.

The first choice is the most obvious. Do nothing. This will give you plenty of time to plan the store closing. If a business is not going forward, it is going backwards - towards extinction.

“It doesn’t do any good to sit up and take notice, if all you do is keep on sitting.”

The second choice would be to offer delivery. Hire a couple of drivers like the pizza joint and deliver the videos to the customer. The downside is that offering delivery during all business hours will add substantial overhead that probably can not be supported by the revenue generated. At an average rental of 2.5 videos per transaction times a $3 average rental, $7.50 doesn’t leave a lot of margin for delivery. You could charge for delivery, but how much could you charge to make it profitable, yet attractive to the customer?

The third choice is right on front us! Little Caesars and Jimmy Johns both use drivers, we need a driver, lets figure out a way for all of us to share a driver. Of course the downside to this is getting three business owners to agree on something when two of them are competitors…
The fourth choice is to make the United States Postal Service your business partner. Print up a box of pre-paid envelopes. Ask the customer to call (or email) you before the postman arrives and you can mail the DVD today and they are guaranteed to have the video tomorrow. Keep a copy of their credit card on file for billing or have them buy the prepaid debit cards and bill the rental to it. (Due to privacy concerns over identity and credit card theft, this will need special attention.) The customer can mail the DVD back or drop it off at the store. There are several downsides to this approach – the most obvious being that Blockbuster and Netflix have beaten you to it and this service is “owned” in the consumer’s mind by them. You are perceived as a follower, not a leader. You could attempt a price war, but assuming you don’t desire a “not for profit” certification, only customers win in a price war.

So the only approach left is to innovate. How can you solve this problem and add a service valued by your customers? The fifth choice is to “position yourself as a service provider and figure out how to add value to the video rental transaction”.

Offer delivery, but develop a marketing program around it that adds value. For starters, come up with a clever name for the program using a movie title – like “Special Delivery” or “You’ve Got Mail!” or “It’s in the Bag”. Then make the service premium and selective.

Ø Call us by 5:00 pm and we will have your movies or games delivered by 7:00pm!
Ø Develop logo delivery bags to use. An offshoot of delivery could be the development of marketing programs with other businesses to include a special offer, free sample or other items in your “bag” to help offset the cost of delivery. Coca-cola may want to participate. Little Caesars and Jimmy Johns in this case.
Ø When the customer calls in for a movie, check the computer stock to make sure it is available.
Ø If the title is not available, suggest a similar title that is currently available.
Ø If the customer still wants the title, log the customers name and phone number and when the title comes back in, call and tell the client you now have the video they want!
Ø Notice the change from customer to client… We are transitioning our customers - transaction based - into clients - relationship based - by adding value!
Ø “People do business with people, not businesses”. The business name or brand will bring the customer in the door, but the only way to keep them coming in the door is develop a relationship with them – person to person. This is especially critical in a service based industry where you are selling service, not commodities. One of the current inherent problems in the video rental business is that most of the marketing has been based on price – rent one, get one free! – rather than offering service. Netflix and Blockbuster are attempting to transition to a service based offering (delivery) and are making significant inroads gaining market share because they are innovating and offering services their customers want and are willing to pay for.
Ø Offer other products – would you like a 2 liter Coke and some popcorn with your movies? In selected locations like the one in question, you could offer pizza and sandwiches with the delivery.
Ø Automatically recommend other titles based on the clients previous rentals. The rental history is already a part of their customer profile. “I noticed that you watched “The Prestige”, have you seen “The Illusionist”?
Ø Email special offers only to members of this program. Every Tuesday new titles are released by the movie studios. Offer to send the “new Blockbuster” to them first.
Ø Develop special discount offers from selected local businesses (pizza and sandwiches come to mind).

Under this scenario you would not need a full time driver; you would know that every evening you need drivers to work from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

“What do you tell a customer who is standing in the store and they want the title you are holding for a “premium” customer?”

This is always a delicate issue, but I have always found that the truth is the best tactic. I am sorry but this copy has already been reserved for one of our Premier Club (VIP Club) clients. Do you know about our Premier Club program? Would you like to join? If you give me your name and phone number I will call you as soon as another copy comes in…

“Do you charge for delivery service?” This is debatable, but I would lean towards charging a nominal fee. Check and see what other delivery oriented businesses are doing. In Sylvania it is common to be charged for delivery by florists, pizza companies and other restaurants. Offer this service free for the first 90 days, then start the delivery charges – just be sure the client knows up front that after 90 days there will be a small delivery charge.

“How do you find the client’s home?”
Ø Google it and print a map.
Ø Sprint offers a mapping service available by cell phone at a nominal charge. It allows you to program multiple destinations so you can cover numerous households on one delivery run. I am sure other cell phone providers do as well.
Ø Note that you need to set up a reasonable trade area for offering delivery. I would determine this by exporting the addresses of all the current clients from your software and importing them into mapping software like MapPoint. This will visually plot where your clients live. In the automotive service I found that 83% of clients lived within a three mile radius of the service center.
Ø And since clients rarely shop in concentric circles, they tend to group in neighborhoods, making distribution routes easier than trying to cover the entire three mile radius.

“Birds of a feather flock together.”

In essence, never respond to what the competition is doing. Innovate and offer new services to your customers. Figure out what the customer wants before they know it and figure out how to offer it to them profitably.

“This program sounds like a lot of work.”

If it were easy everyone would already be doing it…

“Any suggestions for generating new customers when you don’t have a large marketing budget?”

Sure, instead of renting videos one at a time, rent a hundred videos to one customer.

“Are you feeling OK?”

When I was in the automotive service business I came across an interesting fact. My clients (tier two automotive service) were among the leading video rental per household segments in the nation. This was gleaned from a psychographic (lifestyle) research project that I did in an effort to determine what my clients were doing with their disposable income when they weren’t getting their cars serviced.

Tired of competing on price, I was looking for ways to add value to our services without having to discount our prices. So we ran a promotion where every customer who bought an oil change got a free video rental from a local video store. The video store gave me a great price on the rentals because:

Ø I purchased 100 at a time and gave them away.
Ø We printed the gift certificates with both our logos and addresses on them.
Ø The video manager knew that his average rental was 2.5 rentals, so the one free video (which he sold at a discount) would lead to additional rentals.
Ø By working with us, he would pick up new customers for his store. We were no threat and +80% of all our clients came from within a three mile radius of our service centers, so these customers lived in his trade area.
Ø As an added incentive, we gave him coupons for automotive service that he could distribute to his best customers. $12.99 oil changes (normally $25) or Save $20 on any automotive service. For the two businesses this was a win-win promotion and the customers loved it!

While Business to Business marketing does not seem a natural fit for a video store, with enough thought and lots of hard work it can add to the bottom line of any business. (How about selling blocks of video certificates to local businesses to hand out as employee incentives?)

One last thought (and this may already be in place in this chain)… Technology offers amazing ways to communicate with employees – a corporate intranet could support a marketing blog or company newsletter and address issues like these. More importantly it could provide a mechanism for two way communication which allows the field employees to offer suggestions on how to better serve their customers. Most of my best ideas have been gleaned from customers and employees working with customers! One of my first “success stories” was the development of a “Bright Ideas” program in the convenience store business where a usable, profitable employee suggestion garnered a certificate and small prize for the employee!

I think that is enough rambling for now…

Acupuncture - A Personal Case Study

Jeffrey A. Davis
7356 Oak Hollow Ct.
Sylvania, OH 43560
(419) 787.6928
JeffreyDavis@Bex.net
MyCustomersAreDifferent.blogspot.com
________________________________________________________

Dr. XXXX XXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Toledo, OH 43623 (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Dr. Xxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for the recent series of treatments. My back, neck and knee all feel great. OK maybe not the knee.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a copy of one my favorite books for your library – Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith. It is one of my favorite reads and I have given out several hundred over the last 10 years. Today we talked about the idea of generating “Word of Mouth” (WOM) advertising and how a business owner can effectively go about generating this type of marketing campaign,

Most attempts to generate WOM advertising fail for two reasons:

Most service in the United States sucks. There are a number of research projects and professionals that will validate this statement. In professional parlance it is stated as “the service fails to live up to the expectation of the consumer”. Most service providers do not have WOM because they didn’t earn it.

The second reason businesses fail to generate WOM is that most individuals are reticent to give a service recommendation is guilt. They feel they will be judged by their friend or associate by how you (the service provider) performed. If you did not provide “Positively Outrageous Service”, they are not going to recommend you regardless of the incentive.

If you want to initiate a program that rewards your clients for referring your business, I recommend the following steps:

Free treatments to the client who recommends a friend or associate is a good start. However it still puts the existing client in a predicament – if they recommend you to a friend and the friend is not satisfied with the service provided, it creates an uncomfortable situation between the two of them. The original client feels guilty or hesitant recommending you, especially when the cost of the initial service is comparably high - $250 for an initial consultation and treatment session. If you want to attempt this type of marketing I suggest you eliminate this barrier. Give your clients a certificate for a free initial consultation. The purpose is to have then give the certificate to someone they know (new business) that would benefit from your services. If that certificate is used, you then credit the original client with free services. Now you have a win – win marketing program that your clients are more likely to embrace.

The offshoot of this program could be with the referral services that you already embrace. Give “free consultation certificates” to the individuals whose service you recommend (Example: masseuse) with the instructions for them to give these “limited quantity” certificates to their “best customers”. The ultimate goal of any marketing program is not to simply generate traffic, but to generate qualified traffic into your business. If a heavy user of masseuse services is inclined to use your services “to limber up for the golf season”, you want the masseuse to be giving these certificates to these golfers. On the back end I would develop an incentive to thank (reward) the masseuse for the referral – perhaps a gift card to a restaurant. Do you have a client in the restaurant business that you could barter services with?

The second suggestion I would make is to “fix your service”. (See page 8 – Bad News: You Are Competing With Walt Disney in Selling the Invisible.) Perhaps fix is a little harsh – “Improve Your Service”.

I have completed six treatments and here are a few of the items that impressed me about your operation:

I was amazed at how thorough your initial consultation was. I believe that you took down more patient history than any physician I have dealt with in the last 20 years. Great job!

Coleen does a great job of calling and reminding me of my appointments. On the snow day when the office was closed, she called me from her home to let me know that the office was closed and then she re-scheduled my appointment on the spot. I truly believe that most businesses would have left it to me to figure out no one was in the office after I had driven over there.

When I mentioned my knee problem on Friday you immediately offered to work on it while you were treating my back. Immediate concern for your patients well being. I felt that you were genuinely concerned about my well being. I only know of one other physician in Toledo who displays such empathy.

I was very impressed by the business cards of other service providers that you gave Janelle and I after the initial consultation. Short of my primary care physician telling me “go see a neurosurgeon that is in your health insurance plan", I have never had a health care professional who was so proactive.

Now how can you improve your service? Here are a few suggestions:

I asked you what made your service different than the other acupuncturists in the Toledo market. Your answer was “I am the only one to practice the ancient Chinese method of acupuncture.” This is a great point of difference – however, being new to acupuncture services, I still do not know what this means. Successful marketing in the service sector requires you to have a story to tell. Romance the profession.

Educate your clients. It solidifies your image as a professional. Why did you put needles in my ears to fix my back? Why did you not use needles in my ears during other sessions? What does my calves and feet have to do with back problems? And my hands? What is chi? Why didn’t you burn incense? You took copious notes on the procedures you performed with each session but I would like to know their significance. Service providers should not be compensated for the work they do, but for what they know. I would also suggest that you devise a system in your note taking that allows for easy follow up on suggestions that you make during the clients next visit. “Jeff, how are you doing with the suggestion of drinking a gallon of water every day? Are you still drinking coffee?”

Measure results. You seem reluctant to computerize your record keeping but I assure you it would be highly beneficial if you did. How many clients do you have? What is the average number of treatments with each client? What is the return rate? How much does the average client spend? The best clients? Which services draw in the most clients? If you had an electronic customer database you could map the neighborhoods of your clients and see where they live. (Note you could also do this with a box of pins and a map.) “Birds of a feather flock together.” Services appeal to various customer segments – people with similar lifestyles. When Janelle and I moved to Toledo it was important for us to live in a neighborhood with good schools for our three children and plenty of children of similar ages so they could establish new friends quickly. We settled on Sylvania.

I suspect that your clients are similar. Your best clients have similar attributes and I’ll bet they live near each other. Finding them makes marketing efforts more efficient. I suspect that your client base has the disposable income to afford your services since few health insurance plans cover acupuncture. Since “birds of a feather flock together”, by identifying these neighborhoods you could use direct mail to appeal to new clients. For example, if back pain is the number one service you provide, you could do a mailer into the Eaglewood subdivision educating prospective clients about new (or ancient!) remedies for back pain relief. It is a bit more cumbersome, but you could also do this type of analysis in a more analog format.

Keep in touch with your clients. Being a new patient, I do not know how you stay in front of your patients when they are not in the market for your services, but this step is crucial. Do you publish a newsletter? As you are setting up your web site I highly recommend that you incorporate a section that allows potential clients to receive a “free email newsletter”. Write a blog. Invite clients to ask questions via the blog or email. (Note as I post this blog in June 2007, I still have not been contacted by this physician after a service conducted in January!)

Ask your clients. Do you have a survey mechanism in place to ask your clients how well you are meeting their expectations? See pages 23 through 31 in Selling the invisible why this is so important and how to avoid common pitfalls. I am currently launching a satisfaction client survey for a large custom shirt manufacturer on the east coast. It is very interesting to see the differences between my clients perceptions of their service level when compared to the customers expectations.

Google is number one. Whether we like it or not, we now live in a digital age. Below I will share some yellow page research that I have conducted over the years, but one trend continues to grow exponentially – internet use to gather information. When I use Google to find acupuncturists in Toledo Ohio I do not see your business on page one of the search results. The same is true when I Google “Back Pain Toledo Ohio”. Google offers a regional advertising program that allows you to buy “key words and phrases” at an affordable price – Google Adwords. This limits the search parameters around the market you operate in (Ohio) and you do not pay for distribution across the rest of the country. As you develop your school, this may prove to be a great resource. At The Custom Shop I bought words like “custom shirts” for $.50 per click and the beauty of the program is that you do not get charged unless a potential client actually clicks through to your web site.

Yellow pages. As we discussed, the consumer’s usage of yellow pages has dramatically changed over the years. When I was growing up, if you wanted to know who sold refrigerators in Titusville Florida, the yellow pages were your only option aside from asking a neighbor. Now you are bombarded with TV ads, Radio ads, direct mail, Free Standing Inserts in newspapers and internet sites – all educating you that they sell refrigerators! My research at Tuffy Auto Service Centers did make one fact very clear about yellow page usage in the automotive service category. Yellow page ads were terrible at generating new clients, but they were efficient at reaching existing customers who were simply looking for the service center’s phone number. Like acupuncture, automotive service was one that clients used only when they had to. Making it easy to find you in the phone book is important in maintaining contact with your clients. Stay in the book, but go small! Make it easy for your clients to find you.

Behavioral modification. Do you want to loose weight? Stop smoking? Outside of pain relief, my perception is that consumers go to an acupuncturist to assist them with behavioral modification. True? This should have a major impact on how you go to market.

Lifestyles are important. With the proliferation of advertising venues today (our cable system alone carries 432 different channels) I have seen a dramatic shift in what constitutes effective marketing. The marketing programs that are most effective now are ones that do not advertise as much as they insert themselves into the lifestyles of the consumer. At Tuffy, Free movie rental with an oil change worked significantly better than lowering the price by $5.

Lower back pain got you tied up in knots? Golf season is just around the corner and we can help…

I am also increasing your library by including a copy of Positively Outrageous Service by an associate of mine T. Scott Gross. I have worked with Scott on a few projects and this is the book that launched his career. It is funny, informative and a very quick read. It does a good job of explaining the best ways to generate Word of Mouth advertising – both good and bad.

In addition to having the only acupuncture training school in Ohio, think how much more successful you could be in this endeavor if you offered more than medical training. What if you could offer an Acupuncture System (forget franchising or licensing) that trained physicians in how to market their services? Most physicians today rely on referrals and captive patients of the prevailing insurance companies. As you know, having to compete in the competitive marketplace for consumers disposable income takes a different discipline than the traditional system they are accustom to. This could prove to be another competitive advantage that only you could offer as you launch your new institute of higher learning.

If you would like some additional marketing expertise to assist you in generating an increase in new business, please give me a call.

Sincerely,



Jeffrey A. Davis

Potato Chip Marketing

I am a man with few needs and even fewer vices. I enjoy playing golf and riding my 17 year old motorcycle (Harley!). I don’t smoke and rarely gamble or drink. But one of my biggest vices is a taste for potato chips.

There I said it. It is out in the open. As if it was a secret.

While doing research on several companies looking for a career match, I came across Poor Brothers and Three Cheese Jalapeno Potato Chips. Since they advertised a toll free number, I decided to expand my corporate research to include a sample of these chips. So on Wednesday I gave them a call.

I asked for the closest retailer that sold their product. “May I have your zip code please?”

“Sure, I live in Ohio, 43560.”

“Just a moment while I find the nearest retailer... Got it. The nearest store is in Oklahoma!”

Oh. I am in Ohio. I never get to Oklahoma. Can I buy them and you have you ship them to me?

“Of course. We do it all the time and we offer free shipping by Federal Express.”

Great, how much for a bag?

“$22.76.”

Must be a terrific potato chip. Why do they cost so much?

“We only sell them by the case and there are 12 in a case. We take all major credit cards.”

OK, here is my VISA…

Free Fed Ex shipping and 12 bags of Three Cheese Jalapeno Potato Chips. Today is Wednesday, so they should be here in time for the NFL draft this weekend. Fabulous.

Thursday comes and goes, no chips. Friday comes and goes, no chips. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… Finally Thursday arrives with the Fed Ex driver and my case of potato chips.

Now several changes have occurred in our client/vendor relationship. Initially I thought the sound of a three cheese jalapeño potato chip was a drop dead “no brainer”. Bring them on! I’m in love! But as we went through the transaction my perceptions of the product started to change – going up and down like a yo-yo.…

Up – three cheese and jalapeño – great!
Down - $22.76 for a potato chip?
Up – we offer free Fed Ex shipping
Down – Fed Ex takes eight days to get a package to me.

To me this is a great example of over promising and under delivering. Once she said “free Fed Ex shipping”, my expectation at the level of service I was going to receive was inflated. If she had said “free Fed Ex ground service shipping”, my expectations would not have been as high and I probably would not be adding this to my blog.

In the end was the process worth the product? I am ambivalent. I didn’t like them enough to order 12 more bags, but I did eat them all… I wonder if they would allow me to mix and match flavors in a case?

How in the World?

How can an individual in a country as great as this go so unloved for so long?

"Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true."

-- Niels Bohr, to a young physicist

How could no one do something?

"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write."

- William Makepeace Thackeray

What in heaven's name is going on this week?

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children . . . Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

- Dwight D Eisenhower, from "The Chance for Peace" address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

I think Chris Rock has something to think about. We have the constitutional right to bear arms, but...

“You don’t need no gun control. You know what you need? We need some bullet control. Man, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost $5,000. $5,000 for a bullet. You know why? ‘Cause if a bullet costs $5000 there’d be no more innocent bystanders. That’d be it. Every time someone gets shot, people will be like… ‘Shit, they put $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass.’ People would think before they killed somebody, if a bullet cost $5,000. ”Man, l would blow your fxxxxxg head off, if l could afford it.’ …’You better hope l can’t get no bullets on layaway.”

Chris Rock

Be useful. Be responsible. Be honorable. Stand for something.

"I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all."

-- Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

"In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill."

- -- Sir Winston Churchill

"The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring."

-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish Dramatist and Poet

"Beauty, truth, friendship, love, creation – these are the great values of life. We can’t prove them, or explain them, yet they are the most stable things in our lives."

-- Jesse Herman Holmes

Aren't we suppose to be our brother's keeper?