Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Have you ever been in a business where one employee may do an act one way, and a second employee may do the same act a different way? Well I have had the experience to work as a bartender at a few different jobs. I have noticed that many bars put their signature twists on each different type of drink they make. For instance one bar may put a lime and orange on a margarita for a garnish, when another bar will put just a lime on the drink. Not just the garnishes are different, but some bars will make the same drink, but with different liquors. A Bahama mamma at one bar may be completely different at the next bar, and so on.
The problem that bars may run into are training their employees on how to properly prepare their companies signature drinks. Let say there are 3 bartenders working one night. A couple orders a bahama mamma from bartender A, and likes. They then order a second from bartender B and hate it. The reason is bartender B was not properly trained on how to correctly make the bahama mamma to his new company’s standards. Bartender B was making the bahama mamma the way he made it at his old bar. Bartender training is very important.
This example goes to show that although you may know how to bartend in general, you ma not know how to bartend for each different business. You can compare this situation with McDonalds versus Wendy’s employees. If you use to work at McDonalds as a cook, and you just got hired at Wendy’s as a cook, you don’t throw the raw Wendy’s burger in the microwave to cook it for the customer. Each cook position is different, so there must be a well written training program together.
The last thought that I have is that it may be better for business to hire fresh new employees, and train them to do the job their company’s way; rather than hiring an employee that has worked in the industry for several years and has done a similar job a different way. It is hard to teach a old dog new tricks. That means it is hard to train a new employee to do a job the way your company wants it done, when they have done a similar job the way a different company has wanted them to for years.

Holiday Gift Registry

How does this holiday gift giving idea sound? Since Christmas is a hard time to pick out gifts for friends, why not get an internet site put together to make it easy to buy the perfect gift. You could use a similar idea as the one that married couples use to get the gifts that want for their wedding. They basically use a gift registry at places such as Target or Bed Bath and Beyond. That Similar concept could be used for holiday gift giving.
Each person in a group of friends would go online and enter their top 20 gifts. There friends would then be able to log on and see what their friends wanted. So it would make it easier for people to get others exactly what they wanted and asked for. This way no one would be disappointed, and they would always get something they wanted or needed.
I am not sure if there is this idea yet on the internet, but I believe it would be a great business idea. One could make a lot of money off from this concept, as well as a lot of happy friends.

Avoiding Holiday Hassles

Tis the season to be jolly. Christmas is almost here and that means gifts, gifts, gifts. I personally dread having to buy gifts for all my family members and friends. A few reasons why I dread buying gifts are because I don’t have a lot of money, or time. But those are not the only problems when buying gifts.
Getting trampled by a stamped of shop ohalic human beings is not exactly a good day for me to go shopping. The worst part of shopping for me is being in the busy stores and malls. The question to be asked is, what should I do if I need to buy Christmas presents but hate the crowds?
Well, here are a few options. Option A) assign a friend or relative to do your shopping for you. Have them actually go to the store to buy the gifts that you picked out. This could be a viable business idea. Pay someone to do your dirty work, I like it. This option would work best if you had the exact gifts in mind with the exact stores they were at. It may be a little tougher if you were clueless on the exact gift that you would like to purchase for someone. You could send someone to the store wit ha cell phone, and have them call you every second when they believe to have found the perfect gift to get someone, from you. That could quite annoying, and may not work out. You would have to have guidelines for a present to give to the hired gift getter
The second option, which is option B) is to do online shopping. This way you could stay away from the people traffic in the stores. The only cons to this I could imagine are delivery times, and being scammed over the internet. There are a few other hassles to deal with while doing internet shopping, but there are many good things about it as well. Some benefits of internet shopping include not having to leave the house, sometimes free delivery, ease of browsing many gifts alike, and staying far away from people.
The world of shopping is becoming more hectic each day. There needs to be a brave young sole to figure out how to solve everyone shopping mysteries.

Price Labels

I come to find that product pricing is a very sensitive issue. Form having the product price label on the product or having the shelf label for the product wit ha price next to it. I find it extremely annoying when grocery shopping and there is neither a price on the product or on the shelf. I will not buy the product if there is not a price on it and there is usually no employee following you around the store to tell you all of the prices on the products (I doubt the employees even would know all the prices off the top of their head.)

It gets me wondering if it is a strategy that the store uses to not put price labels on their products or if it is pure laziness. I understand that it can be time consuming to label each individual product, and if there are price increases it could be time consuming to change all the labels on the shelf; but it needs to be done.
If a retailer believes it is a good strategy to not have prices on their products or not allow the consumer to see the price anywhere, then they need to change their price strategy to get a shopper like me to buy their products.

Friday After Thanksgiving

The holidays are here and it is a few days before thanksgiving. The Friday following thanksgiving is the largest shopping day of the year, and store are preparing for the mass amount of shoppers. There are specials and deals on merchandise all over different retailer’s stores, and makes for long lines, crowded areas, and many inconveniences.

I remember a few years ago when I wanted to make a purchase on some audio equipment for my car. I saw a Best Buy add with exactly what I wanted at a very low price. The price was restricted to the Friday after thanksgiving and before noon. So I jumped in my car and arrived to the store early to see that thousands of others had the same idea as me. It was a struggle to get to my products that I wanted and a good two hour wait in line just to buy it. I was very annoyed with the crowd and the long wait, and it made me question if saving $50 was really worth it.

Two years ago I did think saving $50 was a great deal because I did not have any money. Now that I have a little more money and my time is more important, I would not confuse myself with the hassle of shopping on the day after thanksgiving. People are crazy on that particular day of shopping so watch out. The stores make a killing on profits on that day, but not from me.

Maybe in order for stores to attract customers like me with special deals they should send me a private message telling me that I get a special discount on certain items if I come to the store on a certain day. A store could send this information out to many people for different days of the year, so instead of having one huge day of sales, it could be spread through out the entire year.

New Markets

I have recently got word that Meijer has started to carry the Steve Madden clothing line. Steve Madden is a classy/ retro clothing style usually catered towards individuals looking for nice quality along with new age fashion. Steve Madden is not priced cheaply as Sonoma yet is not priced out of the rough such as Gucci. It is a moderately priced clothing line, and they also cater to shoes, but I do not believe Meijer will be picking up the shoe line.

What worries me is that by bringing Steve Maddens clothing line to Meijer a may decrease the face value of the brand and hurt the image of the company. I am unaware if it will keep brand loyal customers; because they may feel like Steve Madden clothing line went down in value as well. I know that if Abercrombie and Fitch started to sell their clothes at Meijer, I would quite buying Abercrombie.

On the other hand by Steve Madden making the switch to supplying Meijer with their line of clothing may be a smart move for Steve Madden and Meijer. Steve Madden may jump into more markets and reach more of their target market, and increase their sales dramatically. Meijers image may even increase, and draw in many other customers from the new addition in clothing.

A good Example to take a look at would be Martha Stewart moving into K-mart. Many people looked at it as it would hurt Martha’s image, but it did the opposite, and Martha Stewart has been very successful in K-mart.

Ripped off

There are two major type of retail pricing. One is everyday low pricing and the other is high/ low pricing.
I like the idea of both, but I hate how you could be taken advantage by both. The every day low pricing has goods that are price leaders and very low in price, but if you want to upgrade at all, you will usually pay more than you would if you purchased the good at another store.
The high/low prison is nice because they constantly offer sale prices on different goods each week or month. unfortunately the sales price may possibly be higher than a price you may pay at an everyday low pricing store.
So there are different advantages and disadvantage of the different types of pricing, but I would prefer to deal with high/low pricing for most goods because you can make your goods look like high quality by a high price, but also give good deals by having sales events on certain products.

EBay Scams

Have you ever wondered how eBay can survive with all of the scams happening?
I have recently been involved in a scam with eBay, and I am not a happy camper.

It all started of when I wanted to buy a crotchrocket off from eBay Motors. I saw this sweet bike on eBay, but for some reason it was listed at $29.00, for Buy it Now. I was very curious to what was going on and wondered if someone accidentally put in $29.00 instead of another number. Well I tried to Buy it Now but that option was only available to pre-approved buyers. You had to be pre-approved buy the seller, and the only way that would happen is if you sent them an e-mail.

So I sent the guy an e-mail and asked him to add me to the pre-approved buyers list. I asked him several other questions on why the price was so low, and how much shipping would cost. A day went by and I noticed the bike was removed from eBay Motors. There was a message on the screen and it said do not make any deals with the seller outside of eBay because you will not be covered by the buyers protection programs. The buyer protection programs basically guard you against fraud and mis- representation of the product that you purchase. And if you are not happy with the product for certain reasons than you may get your full amount of money refunded.

Well the guy re-emailed me and said sorry for not getting back to me and told me that he bought the bike in the US and he lives in London. He said there was to high of taxes to get the bike transferred over in London so he was just going to sell it in the US for what he paid for it. He included that there would be free shipping, and if I wanted to buy the bike then he would re-list it back on eBay so I could buy it and we would both be covered by the EBay's buyer protection program.

I told him to re-list it and he did. He wrote me back an e-mail and told me that I could click on a link below to get to the bike faster and buy it now for the price of $2,900; not $29.00. I was excited and bought it. I got conformation letters from eBay that said I won the Bike and I needed to send the money via money transfer (Western Union). The instructions told me that the money would be sent to a third party (eBay) and they would hold the money. Then the Bike would be shipped, and the seller must send the buyer and eBay a tracking number, or else the agreement would be cancelled and the buyer would get their money back. Then the buyer would have 3 days to inspect the bike, and then the seller would get the money.

Well that sounds all fine and dandy, but money transfers do not work that way. Below the instructions there was an address that the money transfer should be sent to. It was the sellers address. There was not any information about the address for eBay for the money to be sent to. So if I sent the money it would have gone straight to the seller and not to the third party.

I was getting very weary, so I told the seller I wanted to use Paypal, and he responded no because his Paypal account was hijacked and he lost a lot of money. I told him that eBay says you do not have to us a money transfer to complete the deal. He replied that either I use the money transfer or there was no deal.

I decided to do some research to figure out what was going on. I read Paypal website thoroughly and Western Unions along with EBay's. I still was confused on what was happening until I looked at My eBay, which is a screen that tells me about my recent bid history. Well it told me that I did not bid on any eBay item, and I did not win any bids. Come to find out I was really being scammed.

I wrote eBay to tell them what was going on, and they clued me into what was happening. I guess the e-mail the seller sent to me with the quick link was a link to a false eBay Motors website. I looked up the item number for the bike and I found out it was for a cheap book. The seller falsified the winning bidder e-mails from eBay as well. The e-mail are called spoof e-mails.

So I was scammed, I was pissed. I can not believe it happened to me, and it still is happening to others. Luckily I did not lose any money. Although, I lost a lot of time and patience worrying about losing money and being scammed. After knowing how these scam artists play this game, I went back to eBay Motors to see if it was still happening. And it is, if you go to Yamaha motorcycles and look through, you will see sweet bikes listed for really cheap, but you can not purchase them because they are reserved to pre-approved bidders.

I can't believe that eBay can not do much to prevent this from happening, and therefore I will not purchase anything ever again from eBay. I even told eBay that they lost me as a customer, and they really didn't say anything. I guess they just don't care about losing a single bidder. I feel very violated by the scam artists out there, and uncomfortable with giving out private information on the Web.

With that being said he makes me worried that many businesses will have a rough time getting customers to do business with them. There are many customers that will not do business on the web, so there must be something done to ensure privacy and guard against fraud.

Follow up the sale

I know not too many reading this have purchased their own homes yet, but you may still get where I’m coming from.

Purchasing a home is one of the largest, if not the largest investment/purchase a consumer makes. Though this is true, how many realtors follow up with a post purchase evaluation? I know a lot of realtors will call a month later to find out how everything is, but that is not enough time for you to even get fully situated and comfortable in your new bought home.

I would like to stress the importance of realtors following up with their clients who have purchased homes. Not only will the following up build a relationship with your clients forever, but you will learn information to help sell more homes in the future, and you will get return business and new leads to potential buyers. As a realtor you could even send the buyer a post card with a few short questions to answer, so you hone in being the perfect realtor. A small thirty dollar gift card to the buyer would even mean a lot.

The main point is that retailers, sellers, and other companies need to do more post purchase evaluations, and follow up with consumers to further advance their knowledge on what is wanted, and what should be done to satisfy the consumers as a whole. The buying process does not need to end after the sale to the consumer has been made, it should be a start.

Add On = Deal Off?

Add on selling is becoming a large commodity for businesses. It is basically selling additional products and services to an existing customer. A good example would be a jewelry store selling you jewelry cleaner for your ring you just purchased. I believe add on selling is great and can increase a companies overall sales, but how far do you go with it.

You could tell someone after they bought a new bike that they needed to buy a helmet, some pads, a seat guard, a kick stand, lights, a new jacket, bike shoes, and more. The list can go on of all these add ons. The question that you need to ask yourself is if all of these add ons can equate to deal off.

I like when I am receiving help from an employee on everything extra that I need, but when they start trying to sell me things I could do with out, then that really upsets me. The most annoying thing is when they try to stress the importance of me needing to purchase this add on, when I know I can completely do with out it. It gives me the sense of feeling that they are working under commission and they are not looking out for my needs, but for the needs of getting a fat pay cut.

My advice to all sales people is to not be so pushy, or act like the job is based on commission. Instead be down to earth and real with the consumer, and be ethical while selling the add ons.

Nutritional Supplement Advice?

I went to buy some nutritional supplements for lifting weights. I first went to GNC to see their selection. I talked to a lady that seemed like she had a good grasp of everything that I was looking for. I am always hesitant on making a quick decision on buying something, so I went to another nutritional store to get advice.

I went to a local nutritional store and told the person the same exact thing as I told the person from GNC. They recommended some products and pointed me in a direction. I mentioned GNC, and asked how their products were related to those at GNC. Well I was immediately bombarded by reasons their products were better. I got confused so I decided to take the day off from the vitamin stores.

I took the approach to ask my friends what they suggested I take and also did some research on the internet. I was getting multiple responses with great reasons why taking one product over the other was better. I was getting so many response I decided it was time to just make up my mind and try this one product.

I drove to GNC to buy this nutritional supplement and asked the guy what he heard about it. Well I guess that was a bad idea because he told me the product sucked, and it was returned 3 times in one week from giving people headaches. At this point you could see how upset that I was getting with all of the different information.

My advice is to research the product information, and try it yourself. You could talk to 50 different people about nutritional supplements and get 50 completely different responses. Since supplements work differently for different people you must try them yourself unfortunately. With that being said, I believe it would be a great marketing strategy for companies to give free weekly samples of their products for interested consumers to try. JUST DO IT!

Restaurant locations

I love food, and love to find hidden hot spots. Now days it seems like the good old fashion pubs and pizza parlors are being ran down by corporate America. Each town has small niche spots that can not even be compared to and Applebee’s or Dominos pizza. It seems as though Applebee’s, and Fridays, and Chili’s are taking over the hospitality business because they can survive the industry by being able to take care of thousands of guests with inexpensive usually packaged food. The respectable restaurants can not compete with corporate restaurants that have cardboard flavored food.

I have fallen off the beaten path of corporate restaurants, and will only eat at quality home made food joints. I recently visited an Italian restaurant in my hometown called Salvador’s. They have delicious homemade Italian food that beats any corporate Italian restaurant. Their only downfall is their location. They are located in a poor some what ghetto area. I feel comfortable eating there, but I could see how others would not travel to that area due to the rumors of the West side.

Corporate restaurants can buy great locations to cater to many guests, but they will not win over guests through true taste and originality. It is extremely tough for restaurants to survive in the harsh hospitality industry, but I would like to see more original restaurants in new developed areas.

If anyone has any great hole in the wall restaurants, or know of excellent restaurants in the area of Grand Rapids, Michigan, then let me know.

Tough Shoe Selection

I decided I was in desperate need to buy a new pair of shoes. I had a old pair of track shoes that I wore out twice. I had plans to work out before my next class, but I had to get some shoes. So I rushed to the mall to quickly pick up a new pair of kicks. I went to Dicks sporting goods, Foot Locker, Finish Line, Marshall Fields, a couple stores I can’t remember, Mc Sports, and finally Marshall’s. After wasting about two hours of frantically trying to find a descent shoe, I was disappointed to go to the gym with out a new pair.

I had so many options that it was so difficult to pick out the right ones. What happen to the old days where there were only a few options? I can tell you that now days it can be a stressful headache to find the right pair of shoes. I was also only looking at Nikes. Nike has so many varieties of shocks with different colors and each shock fits differently that it is too tough to make a decision when you are going to spend a hundred dollars.

I definitely would like to see Nike focusing on making ten pairs of shoes with a few different colors to make it easier for consumers to purchase their shoes. It would then be nice if the retail stores selling Nike shoes could have my size which is around a ten in stock. All I am asking for is for retailers to limit the choices for consumers who can be indecisive.

I would also like to know why it is necessary to play ghetto rap at the shoe stores in the mall, but that will have to be touched on another day.

Majestic Innovations?

My cell phone rang but I did not answer the unkown number. I checked my voicemail, and I heared some mumbo jumbo about a marketing and sales opportunity in an office setting, with the possibility to make a lot of money. So I returned the phone call, the business man asked me a few pre-interview questions such as: are you self motivated, wanting to make a lot of money, and do you have an energistic personality. I answered yes, and then there was an interview set up.

I had many questions for this great business opportunity, and the man told me they would all be answered in a presentation that last about an hour. I said fine and listened to a spearker talk about some nutritional and helath products such as multi-vitamins and a drink called Genesis. The business Majestic innovations is a part of a larger business called Symmetry. Symmetry is supposible a huge nutritional and health company that is growing rapidly. The special marketing and sales position they wanted to offer me and six others in the room was a direct marketing opportunity. All they said you need to do is build a few teams, and sign people up and sell products, and then you can start making residual income, and live so wealthy.

I dont need to bore you anymore on this ridiculous opportunity, but I was very dissapointed to waste an hour of my time. I believe Symmetry may have a good thing going, especially being able to use direct marketing and word of mouth to spread their product. The business owners are definately making bank of from these suckers selling their products for barely no income.

I have already tried a pyramid scam called Quixtar, and it is a serious joke. The only way I can see a pyramid scheme working out is if you can sell a bunch of products to a large group of individuals such as an entire factory of workers. Then all of the factory workers would have to be a in a strange cult to constantly buy these products from you each month.

So if anyone has done one of these pyramid direct marketing things, let me know if it worked for you and if you made some loot, or even if you tried it and it did not work out for you.

no more blog?

I'm new to the wave of the blog, but what I have seen and heard so far, blogging has become a large part in many peoples lives. The neat thing about a blog is it is someone expressing their true feelings on a subject, and for the most part they are not just writing BS.
Of course businesses and people will be using blogs in five years unless, some drastic event occurs and the internet dissapears. Consumers love to brag about products the like and love to dis products they hate. So retailers obviously better have an excellent product to survive the harsh blog world.
All I know is blogging was not able to be stopped in the past, and will not be stopped in the future. Blogging seems fun and interesting for all ages, so just try it.