Know Your Client–Sell Yourself

This is a great article I found on wedshooter.com about the art of selling through observing client’s body language. It’s a great article for its insight on selling and understanding people around us–ultimately selling, if not your products or services, selling yourself.  Read it, you might find it useful.

Do Brochures Create Sales?

It’s the time of year when I have to make a brochure for Project Multimedia. This is exciting and frustrating. For one, I’ve tried this before and never really quite completed it. It’s tough to make a brochure. But this year it’s going to be a bit more than a standard brochure (we’re a design firm, it has to be). I’m looking at a 16 page booklet as the final result. I don’t know how it’ll look yet, but I’m already throwing ideas around on paper.

That’s the fun part. The tough part is the content. I have to go through every department and look at all the cool things that are happening. Then I relay that to the world in order to spark some interest.

Keys that I should remember: This end result should be a booklet that engages readers and, ultimately, creates sales. That’s the point to (at least I believe it should be) a brochure. End result is sales.

I guess I’ve always wondered if brochures have ever created sales for other businesses. I’d love to hear your strategies.

Will You Mm…Aah, I Can’t Say It!

I believe this is the reason for marriage:  to lose all selfishness in one’s self and to share your everything with another person and the other person mutually ready to do the same thus bringing both parties more happiness than being independent.

Everything else is just icing on the cake.  The love, the tenderness, the loyalty, the companionship, the bond, etc.  Those are just things that accompany the definition.  The key words here are selfishness, everything, mutually, more happiness.

The way I see it, we’re not looking for just a companion, but a teammate.  If you want a companion, get a cat or a dog.  They’re loyal, honest, caring, and great listeners. If you found someone you are planning to marry, then you’re really telling yourself you found a team partner.

Teammates work together to reach a common goal and theme.  If the two people in the relationship work together to get through great times and rough times, you know they’ll walk through fire together holding hands and kissing all the way through.  However, if each let the other fend for themselves and hope to meet up on the other side, that hope will become despair.

That means that if you’re not ready to share your independence and your nuances, I suggest you don’t get married yet.  You need to find your true reason for marriage; to share and to work together in your common theme.

My point is this (I got off track):  If one party is continually selfish, the whole marriage will suffer.  When two people get married, they are telling themselves that he or she is ready to give up a big chunk of their life to another person, and vice versa.  That takes guts, faith, and trust.  However, the reason for such a decision is to become better, stronger, wiser, and happier because of the reunion.

That’s what I’m looking for.  That’s what I believe we’re all looking for.  But as always, both have to lose those selfish attributes to regain those extra set of loving hands.

If you believe in God, then you know that God gave Adam a partner from his rib.  His side, not his head, hands, or feet.  A partner is what he gave him.  Both for one, both for all.

If you don’t believe in God then you believe that the caveman searched for the most beautiful cave woman to have his children (survival of the fittest).  So he clubbed her in the head and took her away practically raping her in having his children.  She reluctantly understood her role, and she was his possession.  Yeah, that’s fucked up.

Merry Christmas To All In Jails & Prisons

Christmas has always been a great time for me. I’ve always spent it with my family and made food together. Being from Guatemalan parents, food has always been abundant. We cook tamales usually, unlike mexican tamales, they’re not spicy and are wrapped in banana leaves. It gives the masa flavor. Anyway, I thought I’d be generous this year and make some extra ones to give to some of the guys in my group. I called the only guy I had the number to and his girlfriend answered.

I asked to speak to the the fella, and his girlfriend started crying. I was a bit shocked; It was Christmas Eve, not really a crying day for me. She told me that the guy was in jail. He was arrested the night before. I listened on, it didn’t know what was going on, I just wanted to give him some tamales. She kept repeating that he was in jail, and that he’s not a bad person, and that he’s in jail, and that he wasn’t a bad person (now you must know how I felt). I didn’t know what to say. Should I offer some compassion–I just met the guy–maybe some money–you always need money in your books–I didn’t know what to say. So I said, “would you like some tamales for Christmas.” She stopped and asked to repeat what I said.

I again said,”My family made some tamales and I wanted to share some with him and his family. I still have some tamales to give, and was wondering if you’d like some. I’d hate to have to take them back home, we made about 100.” She thanked me and accepted them. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked so I kind of evaded the situation and just offered what I was there to give them.

Really, I feel bad for the guy. I don’t really know the details as to his arrest, but what I do know is that it sucks. Jail is not a fun place (don’t ask why I know).

Let Your Business Grow; Get A Stalker

I was behind a pastor a little bit ago at the local mail office.  I recognized him because he makes himself well noticed at the church he pastors.  His church probably has about 100,000+ members and he seems to be a devote pastor (he pastors the local People’s Church).  I don’t know the guy personally, but he seems like any other nice human being.  Well, right away I realized who he was, but he stood there as if he had never met me.

I’ve only met him once, so of course, how do I expect one hand shake to make us best buddies (I don’t, just trying to tell my story).  I wanted to say something, at least, “Hi pastor, we met once at your church, I’m sure you don’t remember me but I just thought I’d say hello,” something like that, but something inside just told me to mind my own.  I didn’t want to seem like I was a weird fellow, ’cause weird fellows think that meeting someone once and seeing them constantly means we’re friends.  RIGHT, FREAK!  Ehm, as I was saying, but as I minded my own, I got to thinkin’…

1st, he makes his presence known by stepping out in front of an audience and preaching to the audience about his beliefs (hopefully everyone there has similar beliefs, which they do for the most part–it wouldn’t be a church if they didn’t–he’d walk out with tomato stains on his nice brown suit) [Back to the story].  He makes his message known.  That’s key.  His message is made public and the public listens, therefore the public (me in this case) sees the messenger (the one with a message–the pastor in this case) as a  recognizable figure, while the messenger is simply sending a message.  But it’s the way the public sees the messenger that impacts the public.  I saw him and in my head, I was jumping up and down, thinking, “I know you, I know you.  I’m so cool, ’cause I know you.”

I hope this is making sense ’cause there’s a really cool lessson here for business owners.

See, the if you like the message, you will like the messenger.  And if the messenger appears hierarchically above the public, you’ve created a public figure.   That’s what you want for your business.  You want to give the public your message that you supply a product or service and if the public accepts your message (product or service) they’ll accept your company.   You become a the next business world Brad Pitt.  It’ll be awesome when you’re company walks down the street and people turn because that’s Pepsi, or Coke, or Safeway, or General Electric, or Sony…get the picture?  BUT…you have to make your message and the messenger well known.  YOUR COMPANY HAS TO BECOME KNOWN FOR CLIENTS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU.  And there comes advertising and marketing, and most importantly, talking about your business.

2ndly, this is how stalkers are created.   For a brief moment, I thought I knew him and wanted to talk with him.  Of course, I only know his speeches.  He’s really just another citizen I ran across everyday.   But for a moment, I thought I knew him.  Weird huh.  But that’s what being in the public’s eye does.  It makes stalkers.  Weird people think publicly seeing someone (or something) they’ve seen on TV or ads or celebs makes them bestest buddies ’cause they’ve known them all their lives…blah, blah.

But (learn from this) stalkers are good!  Not for people and celebs, no, but for your business.  You want people to constantly search for your products, your services, your business, because they’ve seen it, they seem to trust it, they “know” it’s the best (even though sometimes they’ve never tried your stuff), but they’ll recommend you to anyone.  Believe me, I’ve done that.  How many of you look in the yellow pages, and the biggest ad you see you call?  Yeah, it’s called “Brand Recognition” and “Brand Loyalty.”  Believe me, make your business known is what you need.

So Lesson:  Make Stalkers for your business and talk about your business to anyone.  If you continue to run across the same people, they’ll eventually need your products or services.

Life’s Not Tough People, Just Use Your Head

Ok, I’ve had enough. I’ve run into too many people this week that want things easy or really consider giving up. I’m talking about life, finances, and stuff like that.

Example 1: I attend a seminar every week where 12 guys get together and talk about things in their life. Call it a resource/support group. We talk about things happening in our life and if we could help each other we try to. Well, one guy keeps watching football the whole week and keeps telling us he can’t find a job. Everyone’s tried to give him leads, but he simply doesn’t put any effort or doesn’t care. Whatever the reason, he sees bankruptcy as an alternative. I think that’s bullshit. If he’d try to fix himself, he would, but he doesn’t try so he lets the government take control of his negligence.

Example 2: A friend of mine kept complaining and nagging me today about what I was going to get her for Christmas. She wanted perfumes, things for her house, her carpets cleaned, clothes, blah…blah. I thought that maybe getting her a battery for her car and giving it a tune up would be a great gift for her since her car needs a new battery and she won’t drive it ’cause it keeps discharging (the alternator is fine, thank you). I hinted at fixing her car, and she went off on how her car sucks and she wishes she could trade it in and how she doesn’t have any money and how life is tough and how she wishes she could go shopping but can’t ’cause she doesn’t have any money and she wishes someone could spoil her (hinting back at me) and get her what she wants like a treadmill and an ipod and perfumes and (wow, really she sounds like a run-on sentence)… I said go back to your ex-husband, I’m sure he’ll spoil you again. Yeah, she shut up.

Example 3: Close to home, some mortgage company screwed my dad over offering him a 7 year loan on his repair shop, but ended up being a 6 month loan with a balloon payment of $84,000 after 6 months. (This problem has been hard on all of us, but we’re trying to pull it together.) It’s month 13 and he’s been paying $1,300 extensions per month so that they don’t foreclose on the property. Now that’s a huge bite in your pants. He decided to try to liquidate three of his rental properties to cover the debt. Ok, it’s a solution. Three mortgage brokers told him that he was going to have to foreclose on the property and there was nothing they could do or my dad could do. They wasted his time, made him pay fees upon fees, and told him they could do nothing. What kind of stupid advice is that? Have to foreclose, please.

I think that a lot of people usually give up when times get tough. They find no solution at their grasp and give up, or at least consider giving up, or in my dad’s case, give closed minded (stupid) advice.

My advice: You have two roads in front of you: You choose to control your life and the way it should be lived or you let someone or something else control you, your life, your choices, your future. If you don’t take control of your life, usually the government or some entity will take it and use it as they see fit. It’s up to you to take control your life.

By control is also mean, don’t let someone tell you that the standards won’t work for you, or you don’t fit the standards. If my dad fit the standards he would only own one home, zero rentals, and work a 9-6 job with paid vacations and dental. Right, he’s a janitor with 4 properties and would have been great except for some idiots taking advantage of fine print shit.

Open your mind from standards and you’ll realize life is not that tough, it’s creative. It’s survival of the creative.

Why Business Is Slow

Ok, it’s the end of the year and I’ve realized that I’m at the office looking at my blog, looking at others, and little to do around the office. Well, there’s a lot to do, but I’ve hit a business block. Little customers and lots of free time.

Many begin to ask, how do I get more traffic to my business? Good question. I don’t know. Let’s take a look at how do I get more traffic to my blog. Well I’ve heard of trackbacks and networking comments, and technorati and stuff like that. But to a beginning blogger, what do I do? I need a “for dummys” book, but I don’t wanna read, so I’ll go back to my business knowledge.

After sitting at my desk wondering how cool the little green light on my Apple adapter is for about 5 minutes, I realized there is little business ’cause neither my partner or I are telling new clients about our business. We want business, but are relying too much on clients to tell others about us. That has worked in the past because our quality, service, and competitive prices have shown clients we know what we’re doing. The problem is that word or mouth from clients is slow. It’s the strongest form of marketing but it’s a slow process. So I have to be out in the world telling people what we do. That’s tough, cause it’s cold outside.

But my tough lesson today: If I want something, I better go out and get it. Businesses and blogs alike, work with prospecting and word of mouth, but you better be out there doing the wod of mouthing. Don’t expect others to help you grow you business or blog for that matter.

Love is a Hard Thing

Whoever said that love was the greatest thing never had a girlfriend. I believe it’s great to be in love, but it has a whole bunch of problems that could easily be avoided if you weren’t in love.

I try to do everything right for my lady. I’m a great listener, I know when to back off, I have good advice on different issues (at least I think I do), I’m caring, sweet, I remember the flowers, and enjoy the cuddling, but for some reason all these things are never good enough.

I got this “I think things are different between us now” a little bit ago. Ok, what does that mean? She works, I work, our schedules are different so she’s at work other times than me, I make sure I make time to spend with her when I can. I try to be romantic but it’s not cutting it. Something else is up. She claims I’m cheating, not in a direct way, but says “did she call you today?”

See, that’s a relationship killer.

Jealousy.

It leads to distrust, hatred, anger, pain, sadness, sorrow, more pain, heartaches, and why? Cause you have a hunch? Ok, I understand that those hunches may be right sometimes. But you have to know your partner. If you took the time to understand your partner, a lot of those feelings and hunches would dissipate (I bet you anything). But if you’re constantly thinking about what you need to do, what your needs are, what you want, what you need, what you could do to please him/her, if you’re satisfied, blah, blah, yeah you’ll always think “things are different between us now.”

Lesson learned:

If you’re self-centered, you’re never going to be happy with someone else. You demand too much that the only person that can please you or make you happy is you. The problem is that you don’t even know that only you can make you happy. You still keep searching for the other person to make you happy. Until you realize a relationship means working together to be happy together, you won’t be. To put it easy, do you know what is going through the other person’s mind? What external things are happening in their life that is bothering them? If you don’t know (or don’t care), then yeah, things are different…this relationship is YOU, and I’m in it only when you want me to be. (That blows.)

You Got What I Need

I know this lady that promotes her business leaving business cards on small card trays around town in other local businesses. She handles business as usual: Someone calls, she supplies the person with Herbalife, life goes on. Simple, well there’s something interesting about business as usual.
Her daughter walked into my office today telling me how she just got $100 selling stuff. I was impressed, didn’t know why, but I was. So I asked her for her story. She told me that one of her mom’s customers just ordered “the usual.” The usual was exactly what the customer has always ordered, “Two milkshakes–one cookies n cream, one french vanilla, and some aloe vera juice.”
I asked how she met the guy.

“Well, my mom leaves her business cards everywhere and this guy got her card. One day we were at breakfast eating and this guy called my mom. We were eating so she didn’t pick up. He called again like 4 more times until she answered. He asked if she was the lady that sold Herbalife, she said yes. He asked when she could go visit him ’cause he wanted to buy some Herbalife.”

That was enough to make a repeat customer. He has ordered the usual three times now and it doesn’t sound like it will be the last time.

So my lesson:

Repeat customers are out there for your business. You don’t know where you’ll find them, so you just have to get your business known. Talk to everyone you meet about your business, let the world know what you do, sell your products and yourself whenever you get a chance, leave your business card anywhere. Someone might pick it up and realize you got what they need.

More Money Problems, Less Money

One of the things that piss me off the most is that if you overdraft on your checking account they charge you between $25-37 for that overdraft.  That’s a shitload of money.  I overdrafted on my account $3 about two weeks ago.  Yeah, that sucked.  Talk about making easy money for the bank.  The bank tells you, “come here, I can give you free checking” but in reality they say, “Let me hold your money, but if you touch mine–even a cent–I’ll legally (and literally) take that sock full of quarters you were saving up for retirement.”  Damn, take it!

I’ve heard so many horror stories with overdrafts.  One my friends used to give the bank almost his complete check in overdrafts.  He’d buy $3 or $4 items which would cost him $30 or $40 after overdrafts.  I constantly asked him why he did that and his only response was, “I needed gas,” or the interesting “I felt hungry, I wasn’t going to starve to death.”  I had to save his life.  He worked his butt off all month long just so the bank can take it when he deposited the check.   Modern day slave if you ask me.

I asked him, “can you withdraw more money than you have from the ATM?”
He said, “Why would I want to do that, that’ll make me overdraft?”  (I wanted to slap him right there)
I said, “Isn’t it better to overdraft once and you pull out, say $300?  Use those $300 to get you through the month?”
“Nah, I can’t do that, the bank won’t let me do that,” he said hesitantly.
“Just try it,” I told him.  “Do it right now.”

He really didn’t want to do it, but I told him to just do it to shut me up.  He did it after I basically nagged him about it.  It just really pissed me off that he worked his ass off in a lame ass department store and the bank just sat back and stole his check.

He felt like crap.  He had just overdrafted again; and he blamed it on me (that inconsiderate punk).  That was my fault he overdrafted and he shouldn’t have listened to me.

Well that one overdraft saved his future pay checks.  One overdraft was manageable, but he was making seven, eight, or more overdrafts per month.   After he cashed the following check, he gloated about having some money left over.  He said how his overtime and saving finally paid off.  Right, his coupon clipping really saved him.

So my lesson is this:

People, don’t overdraft.  And if you really have to ’cause you really have no money, well you better make it a good overdraft.  If you really need something worth $3 dollars, but you only have $1 in the bank.  I’ll send you the other two dollars if you promise to send me $30 when you get your next check.  Deal?  I need it, the bank doesn’t.