The Problem With Retail Salespeople
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Don't you find that salespeople are always around when you are just browsing and almost never available when you actually need help. It bugs me when before I even step into a store I'm getting "Hi do you need any help". The worst culprits I think... is Blockbuster, because you can tell it is so "staged" and fake. Like as soon as you walk in the cashier turns around and says hi, or hey guys welcome to Blockbuster...even if they are helping someone at the cash. Hi thanks, I know I'm in blockbuster thanks to your big yellow and blue sign. You can tell in employee training they are taught that each customer must be said Hi to within 2 seconds of them entering the store.
What I love is when a salesperson can actually offer me some help. All of those PK sessions pay off once in a while. I consider myself to be an informed consumer, but every so often the help of quality salesperson can change my mind.
Cool, well looks like its Ken's last day as Jeopardy's King. Sounds like a huge hush comes over the crowd...can't wait. And he gets beat by girl ha ha!
posted by aforward @ 1:17 PM,
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Frequent Flyer #1
Monday, November 29, 2004
So our first official passenger was to take off this morning for St. Lucia. Lets hope everything went ok, she was traveling last minute and had to pick up her ticket at the airport.
The website received a huge boost this weekend, Andrew and I almost have her up and running. A very smooth, clean calming web site. There will be a few dynamic features and I think after some search engine optimization version 1.0 will be up and running. In Version 1. 2 we'll add the honeymoon and destination wedding stuff!
Should be interesting once we get into booking trips for people we don't know. A little scary too as quite a few of our bookings so far have had some type of change.
Person of the Week: Lester B Pearson as my pick for the Greatest Canadian
Things that get on my Nerves: Don Cherry's nomination as greatest Canadian, when there are no women or artists in the top 10.
posted by aforward @ 11:31 AM,
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Christmas Festivities
Friday, November 26, 2004
Thinking of throwing a little Christmas Party/Slash Business Opening/Open House. A little theme could be "Foods of the World". If we set it up as an open house I think we could attract a larger demographic, ie: young folks and older folks instead of one or the other. It could be an afternoon thing to make it more flexible for people in this busy time of year, like a 3:00-6:00pm type event. Anyways we could have a little guest book people could sign to collect e-mail addresses for our newsletters and of course plenty of brochures and business cards for people to peruse.
For menu I'm thinking Asia: Sushi, Europe: Italian Antipasto, Caribbean: Mini Jamaican Patties, Greece-Spanokopita, Hummous etc and have little flags everywhere.
Drinks: Lots of eggnog, mulled cider in the crockpot, wine and champagne
Or Maybe we should delay to January when people aren't so busy. As a foods of the world theme isn't very 'Christmassy" and should one really mix Christmas with business?. It's a tough call as our place isn't that big to begin with so we can't have like 50 people in there at once .
Will have to talk to boss #2.
posted by aforward @ 1:42 PM,
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A Quick Lesson in Marketing
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Many people find it odd how obsessed I am with infomercials and the shopping channel. Infact, even I find it somewhat disturbing how excited I am if there is a new infomercial on that I haven't seen. I think it comes from being a business student. I am a business student at heart. In university, Commerce was where I belonged.
So there is a lot to be learned from watching an infomercial, especially the master Ron Popeil. Yes this is the man who has brought us the food dehydrator, rotisserie oven, hair spray for the bald man and his most recent endeavor into kitchen knives. It's amazing the simple but effective marketing principles one can learn from watching one of Ron's commercials. Today I have analyzed Ron's Kitchen Knife infomercial:
- Product: It doesn't matter how crappy your product is if you know how to sell it.
- Price: (first he tells what each knife would cost separately, then he breaks it down into installments three easy payments of $19.99 the customer never sees the product's entire actual price, only what it should cost over $300.00
- Word of Mouth Advertising: "If you promise to tell one friend about our knives we'll throw in the mini citrus juicer". Word of mouth advertising is very powerful because it's free, exponential and it comes from a trusted source
- Testimonials: The crowd is asked how they feel about the product. Everyone loves the knives of course (we are in a controlled environment). Testimonials are one of the easiest, inexpensive and effective selling tools you can use to market your product.
- USP: Unique selling proposition this is the one thing your product offers that makes it stand out amongst the competition. This could involve giving something away for free ie: the extra steak knives for incase you have more than 4 guests over for dinner, the extra boning knife, the two chef's knives, the filet knife etc... etc... etc...
Here is how just a few of these principles can apply to our travel business.
Word of Mouth Advertising: This involves letting our friends know what we offer and is something as easy as sending a personalized email to our address book.
Testimonials: We already have a few close friends or parents who have traveled with us. It's easy to get them to say a quick testimonial to put on our web site.
UPS: our premier members club it's free and the benefits speak for themselves access to group rates without being a part of a group, last minute club, monthly newsletter, coupons, discounts and great deals. We are also looking to create free planning kits as giveaways (destination wedding planning, school trip planner etc).
posted by aforward @ 1:09 PM,
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Busy at "Busy Work"
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
So I decided to tell my boss last week that it was a slow time of year and that I didn't really have anything pressing on the go, ever since then I have been swamped at work. The last weeek has been crazy, which is good because it makes the time go by faster.
So the home office is now set-up. It is really just a filing box, but its pretty cool if you ask me. We can store our brochures, supplies, promotional materials, invoices etc in there.
Thoughts on Days: Has Rex ever thought of becoming a model? I mean his Mom practically owns basic Black and Mimi's best friend Belle not only works there....but her Dad is the President. I mean if Hope and Franco can do it why can't he. He could then afford to buy Mimi a bigass ring.
posted by aforward @ 2:36 PM,
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Ron Artest vs Terrell Owens
Monday, November 22, 2004
What is up with these two? Both are enourmously talented athletes and both are always causing some kind of controversy. Try opening the sports pages or watching sports centre without some incident involving these two. There are some differences I guess...I find Artest to be rather ...well...dumb...while TO I think has brains. Artest decided to take a few days off from the regular season to promote his rap cd's and apparently doesn't think there is anything wrong with that or not knowing what the word integrety means. TO's antics are mildly amusing...like when he imitated Ray Lewis' bird dance...now that was funny! Well Ron is now out for the season after the fan slugging incident in Detroit so hopefully we won't be hearing anymore from him. On the other hand every sunday we can expect soemthing spectacular from TO.
I also have to mention Peyton Manning and the grotesque numbers he is putting up this year. To add insult to Miami Dolphin injury it looks like he will break most of Dan Marino's records. I'm a little in shock a team didn't go unbeaten this year just to rub salt in our wounds.
Things that get on my nerves: Blisters from new shoes.
Person of the Week: Jim Bates Dolphins new head coach. We finally have some energy back. Our offense just has to stop passing the ball to the other team.
posted by aforward @ 10:40 AM,
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Eurotrip 2005
Friday, November 19, 2004
So I've decided I'd like to plan a trip to Europe for next fall. The countries I'd like to see are Portugal, Spain, England, Holland and Italy. The countries I wouldn't mind passing through are France and Switzerland. Its really my "footballers" dream tour. The plan is to take in a premiership game and some world cup qualifiers (England and/or Holland). And visit the sistine chapel, the alps etc.
Should be a fantastic trip!
posted by aforward @ 1:19 PM,
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Leaving a Phone Messagge
Thursday, November 18, 2004
I have come to the conclusion that when people leave phone messages they usually make two gross errors.
Error 1: They say they will be home in 45 minutes, or something like call me in 30 minutes ...but they don't mention what the current time is.
Error two: When it comes time to let you know what their phone number is, their speech all of a sudden quickens with particular "non-emphasis" on the last 4 nunbers. which usually sounds something like 521-blazablahsssiidhak...bye
So quick tip for leaving phone message: mention what time you are calling at and anounce your call back number slowly, clearly and emphasize the last 4 numbers.
posted by aforward @ 2:21 PM,
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Christmas Around The Corner
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Only 37 more shopping days left. I'm not sure why Christmas shopping has me a little stressed this year. I guess because I am now two instead of just one. So outgoing gifts have to come from both of us and incoming gifts will probably be directed to both of us. I think we've both agreed that we don't really want or need anything. I don't think I even remember what I got last year. Anyways I'm really into perishible gifts, or for lack of a better word things I can eat. I would be just as happy with a box of turtles than diamonds and video games and DVDs...just for example we have a gift certificate from future shop of all places that we've had in our possession for about 3 months. Now if that was $40.00 worth of fudge...we'd be talkin'.
And then there is decorations, christmas cards, gift wrapping, holiday cheer.
And then there are the new traditions that my little family of two has to start. Well it's "dinner date night" so we can talk about it over what I'm sure will involve a hamburger.
Things that get on my nerves: Raptors taking a beating on their road swing
Thoughts on Days: Had to turn it off 5 minutes in yesterday...it was too painful...made folding laundry and exciting task.
posted by aforward @ 1:06 PM,
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Running a Business
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Well it's something I've always wanted to do and after a few failures...Which I have now renamed "learning experiences" our travel business appears to be off and running. I must admit I had a few doubts at first and I still have doubts but we've already helped a handful of people see their loved ones over the holidays and that has made all the difference. They will be traveling at a fraction of the price they would have paid via Expedia. We now also have access to a great emerging market "Educators". This group can branch into school trips, retired teachers, march/spring break and summer holidays. Andrew's mom has been a great help getting our foot into this market.
Next is to better set up the home office and we need more standardized booking procedures. We just kind of scribble things down in multiple notebooks. But we are on our way. Still hoping for a bit more training from head office so we can get the deer in headlights feeling out of the way. Maybe an email to Phil will do the trick.
I also like how we haven't yet had to spend a dime on marketing. I think the only thing we'll do is host a travel seminar. I'm thinking "Foods of the World" Travel Show. Where people can sample foods, listen to jazz and learn about our company.
Well most importantly I now have a new hobby!
Can't wait till we get to use our services. Maybe I can convince the hubby to go somewhere last minute in January.
Person of the Week (before I forget): Ken Jennings...The Jeopardy guy...What this guy has done is truly amazing and I think Time magazine should seriously consider him for person of the year.
Thought on Days: When I'm home from work I realize how difficult it is to watch Days without being able to fast forward the commercials and boring scenes.
posted by aforward @ 1:13 PM,
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Getting Through To Bell
Monday, November 15, 2004
So it took officially 2 weeks for me to finally get through to a live person at Bell. I was attempting to cancel my pre-paid cellular phone service and wasn't prepared for how difficult it would be. First off there is now an automated message from the Bell president (Michael something or other) who rambles on about the new changes to the billing system. Quite politely he mentions that you should hang up if it's a Monday because that's when their "call volume" is highest. Then he says if you still want to wait on the line (ie: be put on hold for an hour, listening to Muzak) then press 1. So I press 1 to continue...Only to receive a "sorry this line is not in service". Well thank you Mr. President of Bell for connecting me to the wrong number. So I decide to try again calling from a landline instead of my cellphone on a day that isn't Monday. The automated President gets back on and this time connects me to a "right number". The friendly automated attendant says "call volumes" are high, if you want to enter your phone number we will call you back when an operator is ready. I say cool...So I enter my work number...No call back. So a few days later I try again for the automated call back service and voila, yes...I'm in! But wait the call back is an automated person who puts me on hold and says I'm next in line...So after a little more waiting I'm through to a live attendant. Who asks me the question I dread most when dealing with cellphone or credit card customer service calls "What is the address associated with this number" (To give you an idea why this is stressful, in a two year span I lived at 9 different addresses). After nudging a few clues out of the customer service lady I was able to pick the correct address on the fifth try...phew... Two weeks of work almost straight out the window. So customer service lady was most unpleasant having to explain that all their systems are wonky and she can't do anything having to do with my credit card and blah, blah, blah. Luckily what I wanted to have done her computer could process at the time.
posted by aforward @ 9:32 AM,
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A Few of my Favourite Things...
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Small Treat: Subway white chocolate/macadamia nut cookies
Beer: In a pub: Strongbow Cider, In a fancy restaurant: Stella Artois, On my Porch: Corona
Drink: Gingerale
Restaurant in Ottawa: Kinki? (but on the look out for a new one)
Favourite Football Team: Miami Dolphins
Favourite Hockey player: Joe Sakic
Time of Day: 4:30 (quittin time)
Saying: Super
Things that get my nerves: Dave Wannsteadt is about to resign when everything Jay Fiedler's fault
Thoughts on Days: Why won't Tony just die!
posted by aforward @ 10:17 AM,
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I'll be Home for Christmas
Monday, November 08, 2004
So we are in little bit of a dilemma here. How are we going to get home for Christmas? All of our travel agent discounts are subject to the holiday blackout dates. So train, car, bus or plane what'll it be. It has been made even more difficult as Andrew won't know when he is working until early December. I would like to be in Toronto as early as possible and would like to pop in to the Forward's Christmas morning as well. I'm thinking train to Toronto and Drive to Quebec City.
Things that get on my nerves: Holiday Blackout dates
Thought on Days: Looks like the dead will be returning to Salem any moment now, I'm looking forward to some of the reactions and John's paralysis.
posted by aforward @ 1:11 PM,
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Well another week gone by...
Friday, November 05, 2004
Its Friday....quitting time which means its time for the weekend. Going to be working on the travel only web site a bit Sunday. I am a little worried because haven't received confirmation yet that the url is ok. www.travelonlyottawa.ca Which kind of sucks because I'd like to get those business cards made up ASAP. The good news is we have a fax number now. So we almost have an entire virtual office ready to kick butt. Some of our preferred suppliers have web interfaces that you can integrate into your site. I wonder if the big bosses would be ok with that.
Things that get on my nerves: Losing stuff...I've lost an umbrella, some passport photos, a gym pass and who knows what else in the last two weeks.
Thoughts on Days: Looks like they are killing Jack off again, not sure the point of bringing him, back he only had about 3 lines since his return
posted by aforward @ 4:21 PM,
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Cars, Accidents and Insurance
Thursday, November 04, 2004
On my way to work today I witnessed a car accident. A very young man rear ended a lady at my intersection at Bronson and Powell. He was very apologetic and polite as this lady gave him the gears. Anyways it got me thinking about how people approach car insurance. Everyone complains about how expensive it is, but they proceed to buy it anyways only to make sure that when they do get into an accident the insurance company doesn't find out. I can see its use from a liability standpoint, like if you cause someone bodily harm. And while you might smash your car into pieces the write off may seem attractive but in the long run might just increase your rates just enough to make you want to think twice. So I think they should have a car injury insurance that you can opt for. And it covers you in case you injure someone with your vehicle...And I'd make it cheap.
Things that get on my nerves: The hockey strike...Mainly because people are realizing they don't really miss it at all (ie: 67% of Canadians) and since Americans don't really give a toot about hockey, that leaves you with a sport that is going to erode.
Thoughts on Days: Why does Caroline keep threatening to tell on Nicole once they get back to Salem? Umm both your sons are police commanders and they are standing right beside you. Kind of makes you wonder if Caroline and Victor will even make it back to Salem...ah the beauty foreshawdowing
posted by aforward @ 9:36 AM,
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Mortgages as leverage
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
I guess there is a fine line between scheming and education. The question is when do you cross it. Using the equity in your house to make leveraged investments sounds very interesting to me. I've always believed in borrowing money to invest if your rate of return is significantly lower than your cost of borrowing. I even did a speech about it in University. I guess there are a lot forms of investing outside of mutual funds, stocks and bonds that we don't really hear about. So I guess we'll just wait for our little road map to be spit out and see how it goes.
Things that get on my nerves: Electoral College
Thoughts on Days: Still not sure why Mimi doesn't tell Belle Jan is blackmailing her, considering Belle knows Mimi had an abortion (oh sorry Rex, hope you are not reading this).
posted by aforward @ 9:35 AM,
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Dolphins Fall to 1-7
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Well what can I say my team is an embarrassment this year. The worst part is that they don't even seem to care. No one playing last night looked like they wanted to be there. Sam Madison let two passes by him for touchdowns (in the first half...I didn't watch the second), actually falling down on one play. On the bench the camera saw him laughing, what's so funny about being embarrassed on Monday night football. Oh we suck this year because Ricky split, whatever! Lets just call this season a write-off and be happy that we won't be bageled...whatever. Buck up and play because your fans wouldn't mind seeing three or four more victories out of you before the season ends.
Things that bug me : Jay Fiedler
Thoughts on Days: Looks like Victor and Caroline won't make it off the island, so good for Brady & Nicole, but apparently Chloe is returning which is not so good for Brady & Nicole. Will Chloe be disfigured or will a miracle surgery have things different. How will Brady react to ghoul girl's return and the fact that she lied about her death? Not that he mourned for very long (but can you blame him...what guy wouldn't have the hots for their grandma).
posted by aforward @ 10:49 AM,
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My First Blog
Monday, November 01, 2004
My husband has a blog and it looks cool so I thought I'd make one too. Mainly because its a nice way to share some insights on life with the rest of the world. Since my family is Dundas and I live in Ottawa they can keep up-to-date with the goings on in my life. I think my blog will have few general themes like Thoughts on Days (that's my soap that I am trying to stop watching) and Person of the week Which will eventually lead to person of the year. Things that get on my nerves This shouldn't be hard to complete.
Ok so first post here goes:
Things that get on my nerves: Drivers who forget what they learn in driving school, specifically with regards to pedestrian crossings. Look left and right doesn't seem to difficult. I have almost been hit on many occasions by drivers turning right who don't check the curb to their right and drivers turning left who don't look ahead to where they are going. Thank god for being a soccer player, the crazy dances, twists, turns and dives I have had to make to get out of they way of some of these twits. Sometimes I can't blame the drivers as a simple sign would do the trick. (ie: Check for pedestrians).
Person of the week: Ben Roethlisberger. Ben is a very young quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers who just ended the Patriots 21 game winning streak. He's a big guy, who can stand in the pocket, he's mobile and most importantly looks like he's having a great time. I forgot that for a 23 year old he knows how to manage the clock. Oh and that smile....
Thoughts on days: Remember when Corday (Days head Producer) said that it wasn't Stefano and that it wasn't mind control that was making Marlena the Salem Stalker. But in the end it was mind control and Tony (pretty much aka Stefano) was the mastermind.
posted by aforward @ 1:14 PM,
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